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Digitized by the Internet Archive 
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http://www.archive.org/details/pleasuresofabsenOOcrot 



33p Samuel ffi. Crot&era 

THE PLEASURES OF AN ABSENTEE LAND- 
LORD AND OTHER ESSAYS. 

MEDITATIONS ON VOTES FOR WOMEN. 

HUMANLY SPEAKING. 

AMONG FRIENDS. 

BY THE CHRISTMAS FIRE. 

THE PARDONER'S WALLET. 

THE ENDLESS LIFE. 

THE GENTLE READER. 

OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES: THE AUTO- 
CRAT AND HIS FELLOW BOARDERS. With 
Portrait. 

MISS MUFFET'S CHRISTMAS PARTY. Illus- 
trated. 

HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 
Boston and New York 



THE PLEASURES 

OF AN ABSENTEE LANDLORD 

AND OTHER ESSAYS 



THE PLEASURES OF 

AN ABSENTEE 

LANDLORD 

AND OTHER ESSAYS 
BY SAMUEL McCHORD CROTHERS 



HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 

BOSTON AND NEW YORK : : THE 

RIVERSIDE PRESS CAMBRIDGE 

MDCCCCXVI 



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COPYRIGHT, I916, BY SAMUEL MCCHORD CROTHERS 
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 

Published November iqib 



NOV 15(916 
©CI.A440392 ^V 



/ 



CONTENTS 

THE PLEASURES OF AN ABSENTEE LANDLORD . I 

PROTECTIVE COLORING IN EDUCATION ... 27 

CONCERNING THE LIBERTY OF TEACHING « 

EPAPHRODITUS TO EPICTETUS .... 50 

EPICTETUS TO EPAPHRODITUS .... 67 

THE CHARM OF SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY PROSE . 72 

THOMAS FULLER AND HIS " WORTHIES M . . . 95 

A LITERARY CLINIC 117 

THE ALPHABETICAL MIND 150 

THE GREGARIOUSNESS OF MINOR POETS . . .171 

THE TAMING OF LEVIATHAN 193 

THE STRATEGY OF PEACE ...... 207 



THE PLEASURES OF AN ABSENTEE 
LANDLORD: With Remarks on the 
Irresponsible reading of History. 

IN the troubled history of Ireland the villain 
was the Absentee Landlord. Nothing good 
was ever said of him. He was a parasite for 
whom no apology could be made. The sum of 
his iniquities was that he enjoyed property with- 
out assuming any of the responsibilities that 
belonged to it. 

In England he might be an excellent mem- 
ber of society, conscious of the duties of a citi- 
zen and neighbor. But his occasional visits to 
his estates across St. George's Channel were not 
even for the purpose of collecting his rents — 
that he left to his agents. With some careless 
companions he would spend a rollicking fort- 
night or two among his tenantry, receive their 
"God bless you's," for nothing at all, and then 
return to the serious business of life. 



2 THE PLEASURES OF 

All this was very reprehensible, and justifies 
the reproaches which have been visited upon 
absentee landlordism. The pleasures of the ab- 
sentee landlord were wicked pleasures, because 
they were gained at the expense of others. But 
this is not to deny that they were real pleasures. 
Property plus responsibility is a serious matter. 
Irresponsible ownership is a rose without a 
thorn. If we can come by it honestly and with- 
out any detriment to others, we are to be con- 
gratulated. 

The most innocent form in which this un- 
moral pleasure can be enjoyed is in the owner- 
ship of an abandoned farm. Of course one must 
satisfy his social conscience by making sure that 
the agricultural derelict was abandoned for good 
cause, and that the former owner bettered his 
condition by moving away. In the mountain 
regions of New England it is not difficult to 
find such places. At the gate of the hill farm 
the genuine farmer stands aside and says to the 
summer resident, " After you." 

To one who possesses a bit of such land, the 
charm lies in the sense of irresponsibility. One 
can without compunction do what he will with 



AN ABSENTEE LANDLORD 3 

his own, with the comfortable assurance that no 
one could do much better. 

When as an Absentee Landlord I run up to 
my ragged, unkempt acres on a New Hampshire 
hilltop, I love to read the Book of Proverbs with 
their insistence on sleepless industry. 

" I went by the field of the slothful . . . and 
lo ! it was all grown over with thorns ; and net- 
tles had covered the face thereof and the stone 
wall thereof was broken down." 

What a perfect description of my estate ! 

" Then I saw and considered it well. I looked 
upon it and received instruction . . ." 

The sluggard saith, " Yet a little sleep and 
a little slumber, a little folding of the hands 
in sleep. So shall poverty come as one that 
travelleth." 

I say, How true! If I had to make my liv- 
ing by farming, these words would stir me to 
agricultural effort. But as it is, they have a 
soothing sound. If my neighbor does n't like 
the wild blackberries, that is his misery, not 
mine. I prefer the picturesque, broken-down 
wall to his spick-and-span one. 

If he asks why, I will not reason with him; 



4 THE PLEASURES OF 

for does not the proverb say, " The sluggard is 
wiser in his own conceit than seven men that 
can render a reason " ? 

That is the way I feel. I propose for several 
weeks in the year to be a sluggard with all the 
rights and privileges appertaining thereto. 

"The sluggard will not plough by reason 
of the cold, therefore in harvest he shall have 
nothing." 

My experience confirms this. But then I did 
not expect to have anything. 

"By much slothfulness the building decay- 
eth." 

This also I observe, not without a certain meas- 
ure of quiet satisfaction. The house is not what it 
used to be. How much less stiffand formal every- 
thing is under the mellowing influence of time. 
Nature corrects our tendency to deal too exclu- 
sively in straight lines. What an improvement has 
come with that slight sag in the roof. How much 
more lovable the shingles are than in their self- 
assertive youth. What an artist the weather is 
in the matter of staining. It is an Old Master 
retouching the work of the village painter. 
Nature is toning down the mistakes of man. A 



AN ABSENTEE LANDLORD 5 

little sleep and a little slumber, and the house 
will cease to be a blot on the landscape. 

I should not like to feel that way all the year, 
for I am a great believer in the industrial virtues 
when they keep their place. When I observe 
people who feel that way all the time, I feel 
like remonstrating with them. When I observe 
people who never feel that way, I do not re- 
monstrate with them — it would do no good. 
But I like now and then to escape from their 
company. 

The pleasure which one gets out of the own- 
ership of an abandoned farm is of the same kind 
which one may get out of history. I am not speak- 
ing of history as it appears to the serious historian. 
He is engaged in a business which demands 
conscientious industry. The past is to him a 
field of research, and it must be cultivated in- 
tensively if he is to get valuable results. He is 
never free from the sense of responsibility. 

But because the serious historian is virtuous 
and follows scientific methods, shall there be no 
cakes and ale for those who require only to re- 
fresh their minds by little excursions into the 



6 THE PLEASURES OF 

past? They do not desire to interfere with 
business nor to trespass on cultivated fields. 
They are in holiday mood, and desirous only 
of getting away from the humdrum life into a 
region where they may have a liberating sense 
of irresponsibility. 

A recent congress of historians was congratu- 
lated on the progress which had been made "since 
history ceased to be a pleasant branch of litera- 
ture and has become the work of eager and con- 
scientious specialists." Now one may admire the 
work of these conscientious specialists and yet 
see no reason why history as a pleasant branch 
of literature should cease. In the present there 
is room both for work and for play. One may go 
to his office or he may go fishing without losing 
his right to live. Why may one not have the 
same liberty in regard to time past ? 

The scientific historian may ask, if recreation 
is what is wanted, why does not the vacationist 
content himself with the historical romances pro- 
vided for just such idle persons ? The answer 
is that it is not romance but reality with which 
he wishes to come into contact. Only he wants 
to enjoy his reality in his own care-free way. 



AN ABSENTEE LANDLORD 7 

Our real motive, for going into the past, if 
we are allowed to confess it frankly, is to 
get away from our contemporaries. If our 
sole object were to acquire a stock of use- 
ful knowledge, we should be inclined to stay 
where we are and confine our attention to the 
facts of the present time, which we may learn 
by personal observation. 

But to live all the time among our contem- 
poraries is not good for us. They may be excel- 
lent people, but there are too many of them, and 
they are always standing around waiting to do 
something for us or have us do something for 
them. They are at once our collaborators and 
our critics. We can have no relations with our 
contemporaries that do not involve responsibili- 
ties. If we do one thing, we must do something 
else to match it. If we express a good thought, 
our contemporaries will demand a good act to 
correspond. If we express an interest in a 
worthy cause, they at once present us with a 
subscription paper. A good word is a promise 
to pay, and when it comes due we may not be 
prepared to meet our obligations. 

After a while we are in danger of becoming 



8 THE PLEASURES OF 

Malthusians. It seems as if the population of 
duties increased faster than the means of moral 
subsistence. It is all very well to say : " Look 
out and not in." But when we do so we must 
expect to hear the next admonition, "Lend a 
hand." When both hands are full, looking out 
ceases to be a pleasure. 

It is in the attempt at self-protection that danger 
to our spontaneity comes. The man who finds 
it increasingly difficult to make both ends meet, 
morally speaking, begins to economize in his 
thinking and feeling. He does not wish to make 
the acquaintance of new thoughts that might 
involve new expenditures. He will not intrude 
himself on ideals that are above his station in 
life. 

In the hand-to-mouth struggle for existence 
he cuts off all luxuries and develops a standard- 
ized intelligence. This makes him safe but un- 
interesting. That does not matter to him, so long 
as he is young, for then he is at least interesting 
to himself. But, after a time, even that solace 
fails him. His state is that indicated in the 
familiar reports of the stock market — " Nar- 
row, Dull, and Firm." 



AN ABSENTEE LANDLORD 9 

It is when we are in danger of falling into 
this state that the call of the past comes to us. 
It is like the call of the woods and mountains. 
We can there see things going on without being 
responsible for the outcome. By getting away 
from our contemporaries we can be care-free 
spectators of the play of human forces. Not be- 
ing able to do anything about it, we can have 
the satisfaction of seeing what it is really like. 

With our contemporaries we cannot indulge 
in the luxury of seeing both sides. For we have 
to take one side and stick to it valiantly. We 
cannot get on sympathetic terms with bandits 
and bigots and other interesting characters, for 
we should be liable to encourage them in their 
wrongdoing. We must either approve or dis- 
approve heartily, which is fatal to the process 
of understanding. But if we make the acquaint- 
ance of persons in another generation, we can 
enter into their point of view with impunity. 

I remember how in the Excelsior Society we 
used to debate the question : " Was the execu- 
tion of Mary Queen of Scots justifiable ? " Some- 
times we thought it was, and sometimes we 
thought it was n't. We changed sides in the 



io THE PLEASURES OF 

most shameful fashion. We had not the slightest 
compunction in telling anything we found out. 
There were no prudential considerations. We 
knew that the execution had taken place long 
ago, and no mistakes which we might make 
would prejudice the case. 

And there was the question: "Was the career 
of Napoleon Bonaparte beneficial to Europe?" 
We reveled in the contradictory facts which we 
discovered. There was so much to be said on 
both sides. Nothing Napoleonic was alien to us 
of the Excelsior Society. We might debate on 
this subject for many moons, and the arguments 
would not lose their zest. But had we been liv- 
ing in France in the time of Napoleon, we 
should not have experienced these fine and stim- 
ulating pleasures. We should have been con- 
fined strictly to one side of the controversy. If 
we had attempted to argue that the career of 
Napoleon Bonaparte was not altogether bene- 
ficial to Europe, we should have speedily learned 
that the expression of this opinion was not bene- 
ficial to us. These prudential considerations 
would have severely limited the activities of our 
minds. 



AN ABSENTEE LANDLORD n 

Have you never noticed the intellectual im- 
provement that comes to a statesman who has 
survived his generation, and in his care-free old 
age writes reminiscences of a time that has now 
passed into history? When he was in office he 
never had a chance to express his personal 
opinions. He did not dare to say anything that 
might be misunderstood by his contemporaries, 
or have a bad effect on the next election. But 
now he is able to think and to speak freely. It 
is the blessed sense of irresponsibility that pro- 
duces this result. 

Some easy method of getting away from one's 
own time is desirable. I saw in a newspaper a 
suggestion from an inventive person in a Penn- 
sylvania valley that we might utilize the rotation 
of the earth to reduce the cost of travel. His 
notion of the law of gravitation was more simple 
than that of most men of science, and he evi- 
dently imagined that it was something easily 
evaded. His plan was to rise in a balloon a few 
miles and stand still while the globe whirled 
round. All the traveler had to do was to adopt 
a policy of watchful waiting. When Samarcand 
ot Jerusalem came into view beneath him, he 



12 THE PLEASURES OF 

would descend and make himself at home. In 
traveling through Space there are objections to 
this plan on the score of practicability. But it 
represents the way we may travel through Time. 
All we have to do is to detach ourselves from 
the present and drop into any century which 
attracts our attention. We find interesting peo- 
ple who are doing interesting things. We may 
listen to their talk and share their enthusiasms. 
r It is a great pleasure to have a little place in 
the Past to which we may go with the care-free 
mind of the Absentee Landlord. We have no 
responsibility for its being as it is. We do not 
feel in conscience bound to improve it. 

Though the Absentee Landlord is not indus- 
trious or conscientious, there is one thing that 
should commend him to the scientific historian. 
He prefers original sources to the formal re- 
constructions made at a later period. As his 
pleasure consists in making a past period 
seem present to him, he wishes to come into 
direct contact with the people who were then 
alive. He is not interested so much in the 
sequence of events as in people and their 
thoughts. He wants to know, not only what 



AN ABSENTEE LANDLORD 13 

they did, but how they felt when they were 
doing it. He does not much care for the his- 
torian, who is like the man with the megaphone 
in the "Seeing New York" motor-bus, who tells 
his passengers what they ought to see, while 
the bus moves so rapidly that they can't see it. 

He does not care for the kind of history that 
does not take us away from our own time at all, 
but is simply a projection of contemporary ideas 
upon the past. 

Here is a book published in the early nine- 
teenth century which illustrates a certain way of 
imparting historical information. It was written 
with the intention of making history interesting 
to persons who did not want to venture into the 
Unfamiliar. It is a "History of the Patriarchs." 
The author evidently thought that if the patri- 
archs were conceived of as New England select- 
men they could be made as interesting as if they 
were really New England selectmen. And I am 
not sure but that he succeeded. The book is 
divided into two parts : a conversation with Adam 
covering the space of nine hundred and thirty 
years, and an interview with Noah giving an 
account of the Deluge and other events with 



i 4 THE PLEASURES OF 

which he was familiar. They are represented 
as nice old gentlemen, strictly orthodox in 
opinion. Adam speaks hopefully of Methu- 
selah, who, he says, " must now be about fifty- 
seven years old and is a discreet and well- 
principled youth." He was much disturbed over 
the Tubal-Cains, who had taken to radical views 
and were becoming lax in their church attend- 
ance. There was nothing in the book to indicate 
that either Adam or Noah had ever been out of 
Connecticut. 

The "History of Influenza " is a book pro- 
duced on the same principle. The author, who, 
it is needless to say, was a physician, instead of 
giving a first-hand account of the influenzas he 
had known, chose to treat his subject historically. 
It is the necessity of keeping up the impression 
of consecutiveness that wearies us. After one 
has followed the influenza from the Greek and 
Roman period, through the Dark Ages, the 
Renaissance and the Protestant Reformation, 
human history seems one prolonged sneeze. But 
in all this historical excursion one feels that in 
reality he has been made acquainted with noth- 
ing that he could not have found at home. 



AN ABSENTEE LANDLORD 15 

Many historical monographs are open to the 
same objection. The historian starts with a 
modern political or economic theory, then he 
searches the records of the past for instances to 
support it. The facts once discovered and veri- 
fied, he fits them together with mechanical pre- 
cision, and lo, a new history ! 

There is no question about the facts presented. 
They are chosen to illustrate his thesis. But I 
cannot help thinking of the innumerable little 
facts which he leaves out. They were very much 
alive once. My heart yearns for these non-elect 
infants. 

The Absentee Landlord, having no modern 
axe to grind, can accept the facts that fit into 
no formal scheme. He is not responsible for 
their existence, and having resolved to do no 
manner of work he can indulge in idle curiosity. 
There being no possibility of improving the 
people he meets with, he can, without self- 
reproach, take time to see them as they are 
themselves. 

Our pleasure in observing the fashions of our 
own day is marred by the fact that we may be 
expected to follow them. If we disapprove of 



1 6 THE PLEASURES OF 

them, it may be interpreted as being an admis- 
sion that we are not as young as we once 
were. 

If we go to an exhibition of pictures which 
purport to be the latest word in Art, we are not 
free in the expression of our opinion. The artist 
or his friends may be near at hand. When we 
are told that the artist is not portraying an actual 
scene, but only painting the state of his own 
mind, we hasten away. Perhaps that state of 
mind is catching. But in even the evil fashions 
of a generation that has completely passed away 
there is no danger. We may be rid of all ignoble 
fear of contagion. The passage of time has 
brought immunity. We may share the confi- 
dences of old-time sinners without any uneasy 
sense that we are compounding a felony. 

Nor do variations of moral standards trouble 
us when we are relieved from the thought 
that they are likely to affect any one for whom 
we are responsible. 

I find satisfaction in dropping into the year 
1675 and taking up a little pamphlet, "The 
Discovery of Witches, by Mathew Hopkins, 
witch-finder, for the benefit of the whole king- 



AN ABSENTEE LANDLORD 17 

dom." I can read Mathew Hopkins's plea for 
the restoration of his business without any irrita- 
tion. I can really get his point of view. Mathew 
Hopkins was not a fanatic or a theorist. He was 
a businesslike person who had taken up the trade 
of witch-finding as another man might be a 
plumber. He was not an extremist. He utterly 
denied that the confession of a witch was of 
any validity if it was drawn from her by 
torture or violence. It was the practical side of 
witchcraft that interested him. When he took up 
the business of witch-finding, it was on a sound 
basis and offered a living for an industrious and 
frugal practitioner. But now the business is in 
a bad way. Whatever people may think, there 
is no money in it. 

How pathetic is the statement of present-day 
conditions. Mr. Hopkins "demands but twenty 
shillings a town, and doth sometimes ride twenty 
miles for that, and hath no more for his charges 
thither and back again (and it may be stayes a 
weeke there) and finds there three or four 
witches, or it may be but one. Cheap enough ! 
And this is the greate sum he takes to main- 
tain his companie, with three horses ! " 



1 8 THE PLEASURES OF 

That touch of honest sarcasm makes me un- 
derstand Mathew Hopkins. He is so sure that 
something is wrong, and so impervious to any 
considerations not connected with shillings and 
pence. That the business depression was con- 
nected with a great intellectual revolution did 
not occur to him. How pale all rationalistic ar- 
guments must have seemed to a man with three 
horses eating their heads off in the stables ! 

If Mathew Hopkins were living to-day, I 
should not permit myself to sympathize with him 
in his business perplexities, even to the extent 
of trying to understand how a man in his posi- 
tion would feel. But I have not the slightest 
fear that the business of witch-finding will be 
revived on any commercial scale. So from the 
security of the twentieth century I am able 
to look upon Mathew Hopkins as a human 
being. From that period of view I am able 
to see the resemblance between him and many 
other human beings of my acquaintance. A great 
many of them are better than their business. 

A formal history of witchcraft does not give 
me the same intimate sense of it as does Matthew 
Hopkins's dry business like statement. He was 



AN ABSENTEE LANDLORD 19 

actually making his living by it. My imagina- 
tion is not strong enough to make a witch riding 
at midnight seem real. But the witch-finder is 
flesh and blood. 

The historians, in attempting to give us an 
account of the movements of masses, fail to 
awaken human interest. The historian in the 
Book of Mormon, in his narrative of the tribal 
wars, complains of the difficulty of his task: — 

44 Now there were many records kept of the 
proceedings of this people, by many of this 
people, which are particular and very large con- 
cerning them* But behold a hundredth part of 
the proceedings of this people, yea the account 
of the Lamanites and of the Nephites and their 
wars and contentions and dissensions, and their 
preaching and their prophecies, and their build- 
ing of ships and building of temples and syna- 
gogues, and their sanctuaries and their righteous- 
ness, and their wickedness and their robbings 
and plunderingsand all manner of abominations 
cannot be contained in this work. But behold 
there are many books, and many records of 
every kind, and they have been chiefly kept by 
the Nephites." 



2o THE PLEASURES OF 

There you have the real difficulty in writing 
a history of the Lamanites. There is plenty of 
material, indeed, too much of it. The generali- 
ties like wars and contentions and building of 
temples and robbings and plunderings become 
monotonous unless you have some inkling as to 
what sort of people did these things. You can- 
not trust the Nephites to give the Lamanitish 
point of view. For myself I should rather have a 
chance to meet a single Lamanite and hear his own 
account of himself than to be told of the mani- 
fold " proceedings " of his tribe. For one thing, it 
would quiet the doubt as to whether there ever 
was a Lamanite. 

It is the little things, and not the big things, 
which make me feel at home. The historical 
personage must be something more than the 
symbol of a movement before we have a feeling 
that he belongs to us. 

St. Basil the Great was to me but one of the 
Greek Fathers till I came across a familiar let- 
ter which he wrote to his friend Antipater, the 
Governor of Cappadocia. Since then he has 
been a very real person. Basil is writing, not 
about heresies but about pickled cabbage, which 



AN ABSENTEE LANDLORD 21 

his friend Antipater had recommended for 
its health-giving qualities. He has heretofore 
been prejudiced against it as a vulgar vege- 
table, but now that it has worked such wonders 
with his friend he will esteem it equal to the 
ambrosia of the gods — whatever that maybe. 
This is an excellent introduction to St. Basil. 
Starting the conversation with pickled cab- 
bage, one can easily lead up to more serious 
subjects. 

If it happens that we can make any little dis- 
covery of our own and find it confirmed by 
somebody in a previous generation, it puts us 
at our ease and forms a natural means of ap- 
proach. It is always wise to provide for such 
introductions to strangers. Thus, though I am 
not a smoker, I like to carry matches in my 
pocket. One is always liable to be accosted 
on the street by some one in need of a light. 
To be able to give a match is a great luxury. 
It forms the basis for a momentary friend- 
ship. 

One is often able to have that same feeling 
toward some one who would otherwise be a 
mere historical personage. My acquaintance 



22 THE PLEASURES OF 

with Lord Chesterfield came about in that way. 
Several years ago I wrote an essay for the "At- 
lantic Monthly" on "The Hundred Worst 
Books." For a place on the list I selected a 
book in my library entitled " Poems on Several 
Occasions," published in 1749, by one Jones, 
a poet altogether unknown to me till I pe- 
rused his verse. The pages were so fresh that 
I cherished the belief that I was the only reader 
in a century and a half. I had the pride of pos- 
session in Jones. 

It was some time after that I came across, in 
Walpole's letters, an allusion to my esteemed 
poet. It seems that Colley Cibber, when he 
thought he was dying, wrote to the Prime Min- 
ister, "recommending the bearer, Mr. Henry 
Jones, for the vacant laurel. Lord Chesterfield 
will tell you more of him." 

I was never more astonished in my life than 
when I visualized the situation, and saw my 
friend Jones, the bearer of a demand for the 
reversion to the laureateship. 

It seemed that Walpole was equally sur- 
prised, and when he next met Lord Chester- 
field the eager question was, Who was Jones, 



AN ABSENTEE LANDLORD a 3 

and why should he be recommended for the 
position of poet laureate? Lord Chesterfield 
answered, " A better poet would not take the 
post and a worse ought not to have it." It ap- 
pears that Jones was an Irish bricklayer and 
had made it his custom to work a certain num- 
ber of hours according to an undeviating rule. 
He would lay a layer of brick and then compose 
a line of poetry, and so on till his day's task was 
over. This accounts for the marvelous evenness 
of his verse. 

This was but a small discovery, but it gave a 
real pleasure, for should I meet my Lord Ches- 
terfield, he and I would at once have a com- 
mon interest. We both had discovered Jones, 
and quite independently. 

Let no one think that these irresponsible so- 
journings in familiar parts of past time are 
recommended as substitutes for the painstaking 
work of conscientious historians. They are not. 
But they have a value of their own. The mod- 
est intention is to recover some point in the 
past and live in it as in the present, to leave our 
contemporaries and become the contemporaries 
of persons of another generation. 



24 THE PLEASURES OF 

In order to do this we must share their limi- 
tations. That which is a peculiarity of the pres- 
ent is the extent of its environing ignorance. 
Something we may know of the past, but the 
future is hidden in the mists. In the story of 
the Creation "the evening and the morning 
were the first day." So it has been with each 
creative day. Each has its evening and its 
morning which wall it in, and keep it distinct 
from every other period of time. To live in any 
period we must preserve the sense of our eve- 
ning and morning. We must rid our minds of 
that most confusing knowledge, the knowledge 
which comes after the event. The present would 
not be to us the present if we knew how every- 
thing was going to come out. We could not 
live and work in the face of absolute foreknowl- 
edge. 

If we would become acquainted with Colum- 
bus, let us not begin with the announcement, 
"Christopher Columbus discovered America." 
That is twitting on facts. It suggests Ply- 
mouth Rock and the Battle of Bunker Hill 
and the Monroe Doctrine and all the things 
American the hardy Genoese seaman knew 



AN ABSENTEE LANDLORD 1 5 

nothing about. He was not intending to dis- 
cover America. His spirit was that of the 
Middle Ages. He was thinking of the Holy 
Sepulcher and of Cipango and the Great Khan. 
He dreamed a dream that did not come true, 
though other things happened which in the ret- 
rospect seem more important to us. 

When after civil commotions a government 
seeks to restore order, it passes an act of oblivion. 
The transgressions of the past are wisely treated 
as non-existent, and the rebels of yesterday may 
go about without fear. To restore order into 
any period of history, we must pass an act of 
oblivion, not in regard to the past, but in regard 
to all that to the men of that time lay in the 
future. 

Only then do all sorts of interesting facts 
come out of hiding. We begin to do justice to 
the endeavors of men whom we may have 
thought of as foes to progress. In their day, 
and according to their lights, they were pro- 
gressives. 

They were doing something necessary and 
they did it enthusiastically. It was not their 
fault that in the next generation the progress 



26 AN ABSENTEE LANDLORD 

erf civilization was in a different direction. That 
was the work of 

Reckoning Time, whose millioned accidents 
Creep in twixt vows to change decrees of kings, 
Tan sacred virtue, blunt the sharp' st intents 
And divert strong minds to course of altering things. 

Amid the course of altering things it is pleas- 
ant and profitable to be able to watch the human 
reactions, not only of strong minds, but of 
average minds. And when we come back to 
our own times, we may be able to watch cur- 
rent events with more equanimity. 

After all, the test of a vacation is the renewed 
zest with which we take up our work on our 
return. The person who lives among his con- 
temporaries all the time has no idea how inter- 
esting they are. They appear even romantic 
after a short trip abroad. 

Of course we must take up our responsi- 
bilities again. Our serious business with our 
contemporaries is to improve their morals 
and their manners. But before we begin again 
to improve them, we may enjoy the moment 
when we have enough freshness of vision to 
see them as they are. 



PROTECTIVE COLORING IN 
EDUCATION 



NATURALISTS have long noted the way 
in which various animals merge themselves 
into the landscape of which they form a part. It 
takes sharp eyes to distinguish the living thing 
from its environment. There are butterflies that 
look like the leaves on which they alight, cater- 
pillars that resemble the bark of the tree they 
infest. The polar bear is a part of the snow-fields. 
Even the stripes of the zebra, which make him 
conspicuous in the circus, are said to be incon- 
spicuous when seen against the arid landscape 
of South Africa. 

All these concealments are useful in the strug- 
gle for existence. They form part of the grand 
strategy of Nature. The creature unable to stand 
in the open against its enemies seeks to escape 
their prying eyes. It tries to look like something 
else. 



28 PROTECTIVE COLORING 

These natural hypocrisies throw light on hu- 
man conduct. When we call a man a hypocrite, 
we usually assume that he is trying to imitate 
a higher order of being than that to which he 
has actually attained. In this we perhaps do too 
much credit to his spiritual ambition. 

The hypocrisies in Nature are not of this kind. 
The creature does not imitate its betters but its 
inferiors. The vegetable imitates the mineral; 
the animal imitates the vegetable. It does not 
parade its peculiar talents, but modestly slips 
back in the scale of being. It likes to hide in the 
already existing. 

The naturalists distinguish between protective 
coloring of animals — that which they call cryp- 
tic coloring — and mimicry. The cryptic color- 
ing aims purely at concealment. In mimicry the 
hunted creature finds safety in its resemblance to 
some other creature which is either feared or dis- 
liked or despised. Thus, a worm which is really 
good to eat escapes the predatory bird by look- 
ing like a worm that is not good to eat. It will- 
ingly sacrifices its reputation for gastronomic 
excellence in order to prolong its existence. 

Harmless, good-natured reptiles wriggle along 



IN EDUCATION a 9 

in peace because they superficially resemble ven- 
omous snakes with whom interiorly they have 
nothing in common. Any one who has made 
the acquaintance of a garden toad knows that 
he is not nearly so ugly as he looks. After thou- 
sands of years of precarious living, these wise 
amphibians have learned to divest themselves of 
the fatal gift of beauty. Doubtless the less un- 
prepossessing attracted the attention of envious 
rivals and were slain, while those whom none 
could envy survived. 

One who takes a sympathetic view of the 
evolutionary process will make allowance for 
the many worthy creatures who conceal their 
virtues from prudential reasons. They are like 
a richly freighted merchantman trying to avoid 
capture. It receives a coat of paint to match the 
fog, extinguishes its lights, and makes a run to 
avoid the enemies' cruisers. 

An appreciation of the ways of the hunted 
would save the ambitious educator from many 
disappointments. He is engaged in the impart- 
ing of knowledge, the holding-up of ideals, the 
development of the higher faculties. Being hu- 
man, he longs to see the results of his labors. 



30 PROTECTIVE COLORING 

What becomes of the embryo scholars and 
philosophers and social reformers when they be- 
gin to shift for themselves ? 

Ah, there comes the bitter disappointment. 
These objects of tremulous care, the moment 
they are released from tutelage, seem to lose 
their painfully acquired superiority. Instead of 
proudly carrying their educational advantages 
as an oriflamme of progress, they carefully con- 
ceal them, and take the color of their present 
world. 

The enthusiastic kindergartner one day visits 
the primary school to see how her little gradu- 
ates are following the ideals she has imparted 
with such loving care. Little George Augustus 
was the paragon of the kindergarten. With 
wide-open eyes and eager ears he received the 
sweet parables of Nature, and with nimble fin- 
gers practiced what he had been taught. None 
in the kindergarten so docile as he. To him 
education would be no task. With his heart so 
early attuned to its harmonies he would joyfully 
play upon it, as on an instrument often strings. 

But alas. In the public school little George 
Augustus does not stand out as one of the elect 



IN EDUCATION 31 

infants. The multiplication table has for him no 
spiritual meaning, and against its literal mean- 
ing he hardens his heart. His realistic mind does 
not in the least mistake work for play. He per- 
ceives instantly and resentfully where one be- 
gins and the other leaves off. His attitude is that 
of his fellow conspirators. He will learn his 
lesson if he has to, but he will not encourage 
teacher by performing any work of superero- 
gation. 

Has the kindergarten failed ? Not ultimately. 
The effects will doubtless reappear; but they 
are now in hiding. George Augustus is wise in 
his generation. Through several weeks of hard 
experience in his new environment he has learned 
to appear as one of the unkindergartened. His 
newly acquired manners are the protective col- 
oring which enables him to go about unmo- 
lested. 

A distinguished physiologist has shown by a 
number of experiments that terror and hate pro- 
duce the same physiological reactions. In the 
one case the instinct is to get away from the 
foe ; in the other it is to get at him. In either 
case there is a demand made on the adrenal 



32 PROTECTIVE COLORING 

glands, which, as a war measure, pour adrenal- 
ine into the blood. In the case of little George 
Augustus, the sudden increase of adrenaline 
which makes him appear so truculent is pro- 
duced, not by hate of sound learning, but by a 
well-founded fear. He is panic-stricken over the 
possibility of being called " Teacher's Pet." 

I have in mind a boy who was early taught 
to love to go to Sunday school and hear the 
Sabbath bell. At the age of ten he suddenly 
informed his parents, with the air of a hardened 
offender, that he intended to cut Sunday school 
regularly once a month. On inquiry it appeared 
that the Superintendent had arranged an honor 
list on which were to be inscribed the names of 
those whose attendance for a month had been 
faultless. 

" Dickey says he got caught that way once." 
There was something not to be endured in the 
thought of standing before his companions as 
a horrible example of the degrading virtue of 
punctuality. 

The youth who passes from an excellent pre- 
paratory school into the university has the same 
experience. He has an uneasy feeling that he 



IN EDUCATION 33 

has been overeducated. The whole of the fresh- 
man year is sometimes spent in the successful 
attempt to conceal the too careful training he 
has received. Only when he is convinced by the 
College Office that his attainments do not make 
him conspicuous, does he feel that he may safely 
continue his education. 

The educator who would keep a cheerful 
courage up must be something of a detective. 
He must be able to penetrate the disguises 
which his pupils put on to conceal from him the 
result of his labors among them. He must re- 
member that these youthful pilgrims are travel- 
ing through an unfriendly world. To some of 
them, the intellectual life is an uncanny thing 
of which they have heard in the classroom, but 
of which they are suspicious. It appears to them 
as the field of psychical research does to the 
partially convinced. When the conditions are 
right, the phenomena appear. But when they go 
on the street and talk with the uninitiated, they 
mention these matters with a tone of indiffer- 
ence. They do not like to appear too credulous. 

Moreover, these young people are conscious 
that their stay in the seats of learning is but 



34 PROTECTIVE COLORING 

temporary. They are aware that the subjects in 
which the university seeks to interest them are 
not mentioned in the good society which they 
aspire to enter. Were they to acquire any unu- 
sual ideas, they fear that on their return to their 
native Philistia they might be interned as alien 
enemies. 

Education depends, not only on the consent 
of those who are being educated, but on the 
consent of those who are paying the bills. The 
proud father is willing to pay roundly for an 
education which will make his son like himself. 
It is hard to make him appreciate an education 
which aims to produce a salutary unlikeness. 

The only institutions which can openly avow 
their real ambitions for betterment are those 
which are endowed and supported for the bene* 
fit of confessedly backward races. Carlisle In- 
stitute for the Indians does not profess to make 
its students like their fathers. It boldly admits 
to the paternal relatives that it sees room for 
improvement. The student is not to go back 
to take up the accustomed life in the wigwam. 
He is to tear down the wigwam and make a civi- 
lized home. 



IN EDUCATION 35 

But this would not be so easy if the school 
had to depend for its support on the Indian 
tribes from which the pupils come. Some self- 
made savage of the old school would declare 
that he would have no flummery fit only for 
molly-coddles. In the interest of efficiency he 
would endow a chair of practical scalping. 

The Indian school is like a system of water- 
works fed from a remote and elevated reservoir. 
All one has to do is to turn the water on and 
let it flow through the pipes. But the institu- 
tion of higher education for the more favored 
classes has no such advantage. It is like the 
hydraulic ram placed in the bed of the running 
stream. Most of the water that runs through it 
escapes downhill, but in doing so sends a very 
slender stream far above its natural level. 
J < It is the function of the institution of higher 
learning to educate the public that supports it 
up to the point of appreciating its real purpose. 
But while it is being educated up to this point, 
will the public support it? That is a matter 
that causes anxious thought. 

Athens supported a numerous body of soph- 
ists who taught what the Athenians wanted to 



3 6 PROTECTIVE COLORING 

know. Socrates had a different educational ideaL 
He endeavored to teach the Athenians that they 
didn't know a good many things they thought 
they knew. This method was not so readily ap- 
preciated. 

Have you ever heard a successful business 
man who is also a real philanthropist address his 
fellow business men in regard to his pet projects? 
Does he confess himself as of the tribe of Abou 
Ben Adhem? Not at all. He gloats over the 
fact that, whatever else he may be, he is not a 
philanthropist. He has but one thought in his 
hard head, and that is, " Business is business." 
He refers admiringly to " brass tacks," and de- 
clares that whatsoever is not brass tacks is vanity. 
He is a confirmed money-getter, and despises 
anything that does n't pay. 

After having thus allayed suspicion, he un- 
folds his plans. He has shrewdly outwitted his 
employees and doubled their salaries, by which 
means he expects to treble their efficiency. He 
intends to invest this unearned increment in 
various schemes for public health and recreation. 
By investments of this kind he will make the 
community so prosperous and optimistic that 



IN EDUCATION 37 

they just can't help buying his goods. Yes, sir, 
it pays in dollars and cents to enlarge one's busi- 
ness in this way. It pays. 

All this is protective coloring. In his heart 
the public-spirited hypocrite knows that he would 
do these things whether they paid or not. 

The phenomena of protective coloring are 
seen, not only in the way in which the educational 
world takes on the color of the business or social 
world that surrounds it; they are seen in the 
way in which any new interest hides behind 
some interest or discipline that has already been 
established. The new idea seldom appears in its 
true colors. It adopts some prudential disguise. 

One thing which prevents the full realization 
of the ideal of liberal culture is the difficulty of 
keeping one branch of study from interfering 
with another. Nowhere is it more true that one 
good custom will corrupt the world. With all 
the bewildering variety of courses the student 
is often taught only one way of using his mind. 
Usually there is one method or discipline that 
exercises an autocratic power. Everything must 
take color from that. 



3 8 PROTECTIVE COLORING 

There was a time when Theology was the 
recognized Queen of the Sciences. Education 
was in the hands of the clergy. Woe unto the 
teacher of youth who did not theologize — or 
seem to theologize. 

The physical sciences had to walk warily and 
conceal their identity from the prying eyes of the 
ecclesiastical police. In the gardens of learn- 
ing, brute facts were not admitted unless held in 
leash by some sound doctrine. Science pure and 
simple did not come out in the open and dis- 
play its miscellaneous assortment of undogmatic 
actualities. A man could hardly be a professor 
of such things. But by professing to be some- 
thing else, he might dispense useful knowledge 
of selected physical facts. 

Paley's "Natural Theology" contained a con- 
siderable amount of information about anat- 
omy and physiology. Its initial reference to 
the watch might furnish a text for one inter- 
ested in mechanics. Priestley, as a preacher 
and theologian, — though heterodox, — made 
valuable discoveries in chemistry. It was to his 
credit that he discovered oxygen, an element not 
easily discoverable in meeting-houses. But the 



IN EDUCATION 39 

contributions to science were incidental. The 
approach was furtive. By indirections they found 
direction out. We are reminded of the text in the 
Book of Judges: "In the days of Shamgar the son 
of Anoth, the highways were deserted and the 
people walked in byways." The timid folk who 
walked in these scientific byways made no dis- 
play of intellectual wealth. All they hoped for 
was to escape notice. 

They were fortunate if they could make their 
favorite studies look like something else. In the 
days of Hugh Miller, Geology disguised itself 
as a useful commentary on the first chapters 
of Genesis. It was a branch of Hermeneutics 
— the science of the interpretation of texts. If 
the testimony of the rocks confirmed the texts 
— so much the better for the rocks. 

Tennyson preserves the memory of the situa- 
tion : — 

Half awake I heard 
The parson taking wide and wider sweeps, 
Now harping on the Church Commission, 
Now hawking at Geology and Schism. 

The scientific man had not only to suffer many 
things from dogmatic theologians, but he was 
also in bondage to literary taskmasters. 



4 o PROTECTIVE COLORING 

When the educational world was ruled by 
those whose interests were primarily literary and 
classical, he had a hard time of it. For literary 
values and scientific values do not coincide. 
Literature is concerned with certain proprieties 
and congruities and dramatic unities. A story 
need not be literally true, but it must be well 
told. An idea, to be received in good society, 
must be clothed and in its right mind. 

In the Dame School of Literature, facts are 
not received simply as facts. They must mind 
their manners. They must wipe their feet on 
the mat, and learn how to come into the room. 
If they do not come in properly, the Dame 
sends them out to try it again. 

There is something pathetic in the way in 
which the scientifically minded tried to conform 
to these requirements of polite learning. In the 
darkest recesses of old bookstores you will find 
shelves full of semi-scientific, semi-sentimental 
volumes published in the early nineteenth cen- 
tury. They are intended to insinuate knowledge 
of the physical world under all sorts of literary 
disguises. The theory is that the reader will not 
mind fact if it is presented as if it were not a fact. 



IN EDUCATION 41 

Here is a novel, Alonzo and Melissa, by a 
long-forgotten Connecticut writer, who in the 
preface ventures a timid hope that the story 
may serve to increase our knowledge of nature, 
while at the same time pointing a useful moral 
to the young. 

Alonzo and Melissa are making love as they 
sit on the shores of Long Island Sound. As 
Alonzo is proposing to Melissa, they are aware 
that they should pay attention to natural phe- 
nomena. So they endeavor to cultivate observa- 
tion and improve their minds in this fashion. 

Melissa. "See that ship. How she ploughs 
through the white foam, while the breeze flut- 
ters the sails, varying the beams of the sun." 

Alonzo. " Yes, it is almost down." 

Melissa. "What is almost down?" 

Alonzo. "The sun. Was not you speaking 
of the sun, madam ? " 

Melissa. "Your mind is absent, Alonzo. I 
was speaking of yonder ship." 

Alonzo. " I beg pardon, madam ; oh, yes, the 
ship. See how it bounds with rapid motion over 
the waves." 

In some such absent-minded fashion did the 



42 PROTECTIVE COLORING 

Melissas and Alonzos study what was called 
natural philosophy. It allowed plenty of time 
in which to think of something else, 

It is interesting to remember that Charles 
Darwin was the grandson of Dr. Erasmus Dar- 
win, who was also a man of scientific attain- 
ments. But when, in 1789, Dr. Darwin sought 
to express his ideas on botany, he did it in such 
a way as not to alarm the Melissas and Alonzos. 
He sought to introduce botany into the most 
select circles of the world of polite learning in 
an elaborate poem called " The Loves of the 
Plants." He sought to insinuate the Linnsean 
system through the romantic adventures of 
gnomes and sylphs and nereids and other well- 
known classical characters. More detailed bo- 
tanical information was given in the notes. 

Miss Anna Seward, known as the " Swan of 
Lichfield," and a very great literary lady of her 
day, says of Dr. Darwin's poem : " The genuine 
charm of his muse must endure as long as the 
English language shall exist. Should that perish, 
translation would preserve the Botanic Garden 
as one of its gems. . . . Can anything be finer 
than the description of the signs of the zodiac ? 



IN EDUCATION 43 

Or that passage describing the calcining of the 
phlogistic ores which is termed the marriage of 
Ether with the Mine? The passage is most 
poetic though purely chemical." 

Miss Seward followed with unabated admira- 
tion the wooing of the various flowers, under 
which pleasant disguise the most abstruse bo- 
tanical information was conveyed. " The pictures 
of the various flowers arise in the page in botanic 
discrimination, and all the hues of poetry." In 
the description of the love-making of the flax, 
Miss Seward says : " We are presented with the 
exactest description, not only of the growth of 
flax, but the weaving of linen. Sir Richard Ark- 
wright's apparatus at Matlock is described." 
Other machinery is described. "We have in 
sweet versification the whole process of this 
admirable invention. It is an encouragement to 
science that this bard throws over them all the 
splendid robe of descriptive poetry." In treat- 
ing the transformation of the vine into a bac- 
chanalian female, Dr. Darwin introduces the 
subject of temperance. Says Miss Seward, " The 
many disorders of the liver caused by ebriety 
are nobly allegorized." 



44 PROTECTIVE COLORING 

Not only the more romantic flowers, but 
vegetable growths of lowlier order are allego- 
rized nobly. Miss Seward is enraptured by a de- 
lightful passage about truffles. " The Truffle, a 
well-known fungus, now meets our attention as 
a fine lady. She is married to a gnome in a grand 
subterranean palace, soothed by the music of 
seolian strings, which make love to the tender 
echoes in the circumjacent caves, while cupids 
hover around and shake celestial day from their 
bright lamps." 

In such disguises did the grandfather of 
Charles Darwin introduce natural science to the 
polite world of his generation. 

All this belongs to the past. The physical 
sciences have won their place in the sun. Hav- 
ing won their independence, they now aspire to 
imperial rule. The scientific method is every- 
where being rigidly enforced. 

Our sympathies with the under-dog lead us to 
inquire into the state of the older forms of cul- 
ture which are now passing under a foreign 
yoke. 

Literature, philosophy, ethics, and the fine 



IN EDUCATION 45 

arts existed in prescientific days, and flourished 
mightily. Each had a discipline and method of 
its own. Each gathered about itself a band of 
votaries who loved it for its own sake, and were 
satisfied with its own rewards. 

Time was when the philosopher walked in a 
grove with a group of eager youths who shared 
his curiosity about the universe. He liked to 
talk with them about the whence and the 
whither and the why of everything. They were 
frankly speculative. They asked questions which 
they were well aware admitted of no definite and 
final answer. They disputed with one another for 
the sheer joy of intellectual conflict. The disputa- 
tions sharpened their wits, but they " got no 
results." In fact they were not seeking any re- 
sults that an efficiency expert could recognize. 
The free use of their minds was joy enough. 

Now, it is evident that a modern university 
is too serious a place for much of this sort of 
thing. Life is too short, and business is business, 
and time is money. Youth must be up and do- 
ing, and not lose its opportunities by meditat- 
ing overmuch on the ultimate reason of things. 

Still, it seems to me that in the most efficient 



46 PROTECTIVE COLORING 

university there ought to be room for at least 
one philosopher, and he should not be compelled 
to teach philosophy by the " scientific method." 
He should be allowed to practice the philo- 
sophic method, which is really an excellent 
one for its own purpose. 

There is something a little pathetic in seeing 
a real philosopher trying to teach a company 
of busy undergraduates, who have never learned 
to meditate. " May we not say of the philos- 
opher," asks Plato, " that he is a lover, not of a 
part of wisdom, but of the whole ? " 

The philosopher, finding himself in an intel- 
lectual community where the interests are highly 
specialized, becomes a little uneasy and self- 
conscious. In order to be in the fashion he must 
appear to be a specialist also. And so he fre- 
quently disguises his real aim by a critical ap- 
paratus which imposes on the undiscerning. It 
is all the more refreshing when we come across 
a philosopher who is interested in the incom- 
prehensible universe, and who does n't care who 
knows it. 

The plight of the teacher of literature is some- 
what different. He is afraid of the undue popu- 



IN EDUCATION 47 

larity of his courses among the less industrious 
undergraduates. He bears about with him a 
secret which is a source of personal joy, but 
at the same time full of danger to the uninitiated. 
It must be carefully guarded. This guilty secret 
is that the reading of good books, especially if 
they are written in one's native language, is not 
hard work, but is in^reality a pleasant pastime. 
The masterpieces of literature are not difficult 
reading to any one who approaches them in the 
right spirit. They are often thrilling, they are 
sometimes amusing, and they are usually written 
in such a style that their meaning is easily 
grasped. First-rate books are written in a more 
understandable style than third-rate books. All 
this the teacher of literature well knows, and his 
secret desire is to lead appreciative youth in the 
paths of pleasantness which he has discovered. 

But alas, if the secret were known, his class- 
rooms would be invaded by a host of young 
Philistines in search of easy courses. "Tell it 
not in Gath, publish it not in the streets of 
Askelon ! " 

The pleasant paths must be obstructed by 
barbed-wire entanglements borrowed from the 



48 PROTECTIVE COLORING 

scientific machine shops. Instead of an invitation 
to read together the few books which are a joy 
forever, the "required reading" leads over many 
a long and rocky road chosen because it fur- 
nishes a good endurance test. It is hoped that 
the idle fellows will fall by the wayside, and the 
grapes of Canaan may be reserved for those who 
have crossed the forbidding desert. 

Sometimes the teacher of literature wonders 
whether it is worth while to keep up the stern 
pretense. Why not let the cat out of the bag ? 
Reading is a recreation rather than an enforced 
discipline. Why should not leisure be left for 
such recreation even in the strenuous days of 
youth ? The habit will be a great solace in later 
life. 

We are beginning to see that the ideal of a 
liberal education is too large to be put into four 
years of a college course. It is the growth of a 
lifetime spent in contact with the actual world. 
But it is not too much to ask that in a univer- 
sity the student should be brought into contact 
with different types of the intellectual life, and 
that each type should be kept distinct. He 



IN EDUCATION 49 

should learn that the human mind is a marvelous 
instrument and that it may be used in more than 
one way. 

Variety in courses of study is less important 
than variety and individuality of mental action. 
How does a man of science use his mind? How 
does an artist feel ? What makes a man a jurist, 
a man of business, a politician, a teacher? How 
does ethical passion manifest itself? What is the 
historical sense? 

These are not questions to be answered on 
examination papers. But it is a reasonable hope 
that a young man in the formative period of his 
life may learn the answers through personal con- 
tacts. 



CONCERNING THE LIBERTY OF 
TEACHING: Epaphroditus to his much- 
valued Philosopher and Slave Epictetus 

THE gods, Epictetus, distribute their gifts 
as they will. To me they have given, 
through the favor of the divine Nero, freedom 
and wealth. On thee they have bestowed an 
acute understanding and a fervent love of wis- 
dom. These are the more excellent gifts, for 
which thou art duly thankful. Had I been en- 
dowed with a virtuous disposition, I should have 
practiced those virtues which I have been 
pleased to hear thee describe. But it was not so 
decreed. I mustbecontentwith what a Christian 
slave, quoting from the scriptures of his sect, 
calls " filthy lucre." 

But thou hast taught me that everything 
should be taken by its right handle. Grasping 
filthy lucre, with no unwilling hands, I may 
make it serve my purpose. If I cannot be a 



THE LIBERTY OF TEACHING 51 

philosopher — a state far above my poor deserts 
— I can at least own one. 

Other rich men invest their money in gladia- 
tors, or charioteers, or dancing women, or in beau- 
tiful youths who attract the admiration of the un- 
thinking. But I have soberer tastes. It is my 
ambition to be the owner of a veritable philos- 
opher, one who devotes himself continually to 
the highest themes. When thou wert a mere boy, 
I recognized thy worth. Here is one who has in 
him the making of a sage. Give him but good 
masters and leisure to grow wise, and I will 
match him against any thinker in Rome. For 
this end, I sent thee to the school of Musonius 
Rufus, that thou mightest learn the lore of the 
ancients. In my household I have given thee 
every opportunity to practice frugality and all 
the austere virtues of the Stoics, for I would train 
thee to be a winner in the immortal race. Thou 
art yet young, Epictetus, but thou art full of 
promise. 

Two thousand years from now, when the 
Empire of the Caesars has extended beyond the 
western seas, who will remember the heroes of 
the arena, or the rich men who supported them ? 



S 2 CONCERNING THE LIBERTY 

But in that far-off day men will speak of Epaph- 
roditus. Was he not the lawful owner of the 
great Epictetus? 

Do not chide me for linking my name with 
thine. I know that the desire for fame is some- 
thing unbefitting a philosopher. But I am not a 
philosopher. I am not thyself. I am only thy 
proprietor. Do not blame me for this vanity. 
It is in accordance with my nature. Thou know- 
est, as indeed all Rome knows, my vices. Do 
not be too severe with this my imperfect virtue. 

For it is a virtue, Epictetus, this admiration 
for thy virtue. Thou knowest how highly I 
value thee. I would not sell thee for the price 
of a chariot and horses. And it is thy virtues 
that make thee of such value to me. Often at 
Nero's banquets I contrast thy temperance with 
my luxury. Thou art able to sleep on a hard 
bed, to wear coarse clothing, to eat sparingly 
and to be content. How much better that is 
than my satiety ! How altogether admirable is 
thy way of life! I should not think of attempt- 
ing to imitate it. It is inimitable. 

But I am grieved, Epictetus, to receive from 
thee a letter in which for the first time I discern 



OF TEACHING S 3 

a flaw in thy philosophy. Forgive me if I, who 
am thy inferior in such high matters, call atten- 
tion to it. For the first time thou hast shown dis- 
contentment with thy lot. Thou sayest that the 
question has arisen in thy mind whether a teacher 
of philosophy should be a slave. What will 
future generations say to a civilization in which 
the man who knows submits to be the property 
of the man who furnishes the means to support 
his bodily existence? And will not people 
distrust the teachings of a man who obeys an- 
other's will ? What would Socrates say to such 
a relation? 

Ah, Epictetus! Are not such questions an- 
swered by thy philosophy? There are things in- 
different. What does it matter what the vulgar 
think of thee? Their thoughts cannot harm 
thee. And what of Posterity? Posterity will 
have troubles of its own, and doubtless will have 
invented new forms of servitude, which may 
make our system of slavery appear to err on the 
side of too much freedom. As for Socrates, he 
doubtless would have his bitter jibe. But he 
lived in a tumultuous little city where liberty was 
carried to excess, and not in a great ordered 



54 CONCERNING THE LIBERTY 

Empire where Caesar gives to every man his due. 
And Socrates would have lived longer if he had 
had a master who could have protected him from 
the results of his own vagaries. In his quiet old 
age, after he had seen the folly of asking so many 
questions, he might have written down the an- 
swers which were desirable. Had Socrates been 
the slave of Alcibiades, he might have lived to be 
his own Plato. 

Slavery is an external condition. It is some- 
thing which is not within thy power to change. 
Should it not be therefore accepted with equa- 
nimity? I myself am only a freedman, but I am 
now thy master, for I have been able, through 
the wealth that I have acquired, to buy thee. 
Should these outward things be allowed to fret 
thy soul? 

Slavery is doubtless degrading to one who is 
not a philosopher. But to a philosopher it offers 
many opportunities for admirable self-renuncia- 
tion. When one door is shut, another opens. I 
shut the door of the outer liberty against thee. 
Thou openest the door of the inner liberty, so 
that thou mightest enter a realm into which I 
am not worthy to follow thee. This certainly is 



OF TEACHING 55 

to thy advantage. Does not freedom, for every 
one, have its limits? The soul is in a beautiful 
garden walled about by necessity. If it were not 
for the wall, the soul would wonder abroad and 
engage in futile conflicts with reality. If we 
were altogether free, we should act and not 
think. But Necessity compels us to think in or- 
der to explain why we do not achieve. It is a 
salutary experience. We attempt to do a good 
deed. Nature prevents. Then we think a good 
thought and find our satisfaction in that. Is not 
that the birth of Philosophy? 

In regard to the business of life, let Epaphro- 
ditus stand to thee in the place of brute Nature. 
He shall be the lower limit to thy activity. Thy 
problem is to be as free as it is possible to be 
while yet his slave. He shall prevent thy powers 
from being wasted on matters unworthy of thee. 
In all that concerns thy higher life, thou shalt 
be free. When thy will conflicts with the will of 
Epaphroditus, thou mayest escape by a sudden 
flight into the upper air. He will watch thy fur- 
thest flight into pure virtue with approval. The 
further the better. Do not interfere with him 
and he will not interfere with thee. 



56 CONCERNING THE LIBERTY 

Thou askest, "Why should Epaphroditus 
wish to own Epictetus when he makes so little 
use of his teachings in the conduct of his own 
life?" 

Ah, Epictetus, thou little knowest what it is 
to be rich. To be very rich is to possess more 
than one can use. It is in the possession and not 
in the use that the possibility of any satisfaction 
comes. The man who has one horse rides it and 
finds enjoyment in the exercise. But the man 
who has a thousand horses cannot ride them all ; 
perhaps he does not even see them. Such joys 
he leaves to those whom he employs for the 
purpose. 

I have heard thee say that there are things 
that money cannot buy. I know that this 
is true. We poor wretches, who have nothing 
but the things which money can buy, must make 
the most of our poor possessions. While we 
cannot expect the finer joys, we accept the grati- 
fication that belongs to our situation. 

To practice disinterested virtue is a privilege 
which is thine. I cannot enter into it. But do I 
not clothe thee, feed thee, and direct thy actions? 
In this sense of proprietorship I find a satisfaction 



OF TEACHING 57 

which is a compensation for my own lack of 
participation in the moral life. To have in my 
own household a model of perfect virtue is a 
comfort to me, which I cannot explain. I am not 
inclined to conform to the model. May one 
not do what he will with his own, even to letting 
it alone ? 

Is not the matter reduced to this : the relation 
between the Wise and the Prosperous? Plato 
conceived a Republic in which the philosophers 
ruled. The truth-lover was allowed to play the 
tyrant. There could be no glad worship of Pros- 
perity in such a community. Is it not better to 
allow each class to follow its own nature ? Let 
the wise be wise and let the prosperous be pros- 
perous. 

Wherein does my prosperity interfere with 
thy wisdom? Thou art able to draw many 
lessons from my conduct. I am thy helot in 
whom thou canst find an excellent example of 
the evils of intemperance. 

Let the wise practice reciprocity with the 
prosperous. It is a mistake to say that we ever 
prefer falsehood to truth or delight to sur- 
round ourselves with insincere flatterers. We 



5 8 CONCERNING THE LIBERTY 

prefer truth if we can only find the kind that 
serves our ends. Here is the opportunity for the 
wise. Let them cultivate many kinds of truth, 
so as to have something pleasing for every oc- 
casion. They should be prepared to present the 
truths that are called for. When Caesar desires 
wine, the cup-bearer, with sure instinct, offers 
the wine that most accords with Caesar's taste. 
It is not wine for its own sake, but wine for the 
sake of the imperial palate, that is demanded. 

I have spoken of the man with a thousand 
horses. Since I have owned thee, Epictetus, I 
have sometimes dreamed of a School of a Thou- 
sand Sages. Were I rich enough, I would bring 
together the truly wise from the ends of the 
earth, so that they should advance human knowl- 
edge and present it in its endless variety. I would 
build great houses for my learned men and give 
them ample leisure to pursue their various studies. 
Hither should the youth of the Empire resort 
for instruction. 

My scholars should be able to teach all that is 
known among men. In the great school there 
should be a thousand eager minds, and a sin- 
gle will. Not that I should use my will often. 



OF TEACHING 59 

Only it should be a power in reserve, I should 
know it was there, and my learned men should 
know it was there, and wisely avoid a conflict. 

Of all the arts, Epictetus, Education seems to 
me the greatest, and the one that should be in 
the hands of the ruling class. The teacher is a 
sculptor whose statue is not passive under his 
hand. He is Pygmalion, whose masterpiece 
is alive. What power greater than to pre- 
pare a thought, and then skillfully prepare 
minds who will think that ! thought? The 
first thinker can thus multiply his thought 
indefinitely. He chooses his theme and his 
people with disciplined mentality follow him 
through all the mazes of prearranged harmony. 
There can be no discord between theory and 
practice when the theory has been made to fit the 
practice. When wise men are chosen and trained 
to teach that which is expedient, we have a 
human cosmos, a beautiful order. What one 
man thinks is negligible, but a million minds 
thinking rhythmically are irresistible. 

If I were Caesar — which it is blasphemy for 
me to imagine — I should build over against 
my Golden House a Temple of Learning, a 



6o CONCERNING THE LIBERTY 

School of the Thousand Sages. He who builds 
his empire on Fear rules only over cowards. 
Some day, through his fostering care, his sub- 
jects grow strong and self-reliant and with one 
voice cry, Who is afraid? And when men cease 
to be afraid, the Empire falls. 

But there is a power which coerces the strong. 
It is the power of Thought. Men will go 
through fire and water for an opinion. The 
ruler who would reign completely must gain 
control of men's opinions, and form them to 
his own will. 

I fear Caesar takes too little account of this. 
Only yesterday in the Arena I saw a fanatic 
torn to pieces because he held the opinion that 
Csesar is not divine. A word or a gesture would 
have saved him, but the wretch chose to die in 
agony. 

When the spectacle was over, Csesar turned 
to me and said, " Poor fool, he might be alive 
and merry at this moment had he but under- 
stood that I care not a fig for what he thinks, 
but only for what he says." 

I said, as was my duty, that the godlike Caesar 
spoke with sublime wisdom. But within myself 



OF TEACHING 61 

I doubted. These wretches are unafraid. What 
if their opinion should spread throughout the 
Empire, till all men should think of Caesar's 
power as a baseless superstition? Would Qesar 
be supremely powerful if men did not think 
him so? 

No, the Empire must be supported by in- 
telligence. It must appeal to reason. I would 
have a Praetorian Guard of the learned to sup- 
port my claims to the homage of mankind. 
These men should be trained to think together. 
Their thoughts should form a solid phalanx. 
When they move, it should be in unison and 
to a clearly defined object. My Empire should 
be to them the Cosmos, and my will the law of 
Nature. Beyond it should be only the realm of 
Chaos and Night, into which they would not 
think of intruding. 

Then I should do what I willed, and none 
should ask why, because my sages would have 
anticipated the inquiry. Men would be taught the 
correct answers, before it occurred to them to ask 
the difficult question. They would have shown 
that it was not willfulness but necessity that 
caused the action : Csesar being what he is, it is 



62 CONCERNING THE LIBERTY 

necessary that Caesar's action should have been 
what it has been. When my sages had demon- 
strated that this is so, the people would be sat- 
isfied. For man is a rational animal and loves 
to have a reason for what he is compelled 
to do. 

This is my dream of Education, Epictetus, 
but I do not know whether it can be realized. 
Before it can be realized, there must be a great 
increase in the sum of human knowledge, so 
that this sum may be divided. In the present 
state of erudition, there are not enough topics to 
keep the active minds of my sages safely occu- 
pied. They would always be harping on the 
few simple ideas of the True, the Good, and 
the Beautiful. They might apply these ideas, 
even as do the vulgar, to Caesar himself, to whom, 
as thou knowest, they are not applicable. 

But when knowledge has vastly increased, It 
may be divided skillfully, so that each sage may 
have some little portion over which he may ex- 
ercise his wits for a lifetime, and not mingle his 
learning with any element dangerous to the 
Empire. 

Thou knowest how the four elements in Na- 



OF TEACHING 63 

ture have their likes and dislikes. The water in a 
closed receptacle is harmless. But when fire is 
applied to the vessel, the water is enraged and 
like a giant bursts its bonds. Knowing this 
antipathy between the Hot and the Moist, we 
learn to humor them. We use this anger of the 
elements to cook our food. 

So I should see to it that the various knowl- 
edges of my sages were kept apart till I chose to 
bring them together for a purpose of my own. 
Their minds should be active along their several 
lines, and I should draw the expedient conclu- 
sions. In this way, through the influence of the 
learned, mankind might be made at the same 
time more intelligent and obedient. 

I like not the story of Alexander and Diog- 
enes. Had Alexander been as wise as he was 
valiant, he would not have asked condescend- 
ingly what he could do for a philosopher, and 
so have brought on himself the rude retort about 
getting out of the sunshine. Had he been a more 
experienced prince, he would have seated him- 
self in the shadow of the tub and begun the con- 
versation modestly. 

" This is excellent sunshine of thine, Diogenes, 



64 CONCERNING THE LIBERTY 

and it is greatly to thy credit to enjoy it, so that 
there is need of nothing beside it to make thee 
as happy as thy severe philosophy will allow. 
I come to ask thy help in matters of state. 
Couldst thou not teach my new subjects, whom 
I have deprived of their homes, to be satisfied 
with the sunshine which kind Nature gives to 
those from whom military necessity has taken 
all else? Perhaps when they have learned thy 
wisdom, they may feel that my coming among 
them has been for the best. 

" I was about to say, when I first saw thee 
sitting in the sun, that if I were not Alexander 
I would be Diogenes. But now my ambition 
grows and I ask myself, why not be both? Alex- 
ander could only subjugate the world. But under 
Alexander-Diogenes the world would be sub- 
jugated and contented." 

Diogenes would not be asked to change his 
manner of life. But as Alexander's man his vir- 
tues could be profitably employed. 

I have written thus fully, Epictetus, because 
the subject is one of great importance. Whether 
the learned should be held as slaves, as is to 
some extent our present custom, may be a matter 



OF TEACHING 65 

about which future ages may hold different 
opinions. They may have improved methods for 
producing that harmonious subordination of the 
true to the expedient which is the great neces- 
sity. Even now there are those who think it 
more economical to hire a sage than to own him 
outright. With such I have no quarrel, being 
content to hold my own opinion and to allow 
others an equal liberty. 

But the all-important thing is the status of the 
thinker. Shall the man who knows be encouraged 
to tell all he knows, or shall his utterance be con- 
trolled by some one in authority over him? 

If the thinker is all the time uttering his own 
thoughts, he will be a continual annoyance. He 
will interfere both with the pleasure and the 
profit of those whose right to happiness is 
equal to his own. There will never be an equi- 
librium in a society so organized. No sooner 
has a plan begun to work profitably than 
some one thinks of an improvement upon it. 
No sooner have men begun to accept an exist- 
ing condition than some one points a way out. 
Thus new experiments will always be tried by 
restless spirits. 



66 CONCERNING THE LIBERTY 

It is necessary, then, that intellectual force 
should be controlled in the interest of those who 
have shown their ability to rule by actually rul- 
ing, and their fitness to prosper by actually 
prospering. 

Let one thing be made clear. It is not 
thought that we object to ; it is only the too 
specific application of thought. One may admire 
the lightning playing among the clouds and yet 
cry out when the bolt strikes his own house. 
Cannot wisdom flash among the clouds, without 
destroying the cheerful house of Folly? It 
should be taught to keep its place. 

As for thee, Epictetus, I glory in the working 
of thy clear mind. Think deeply, think loftily, 
but do not disturb the business or the pleasures 
of thy moral inferiors. I am thy moral inferior, 
I humbly acknowledge it. But I am thy legal 
master, and I bid thee not to disturb me. 

Thou wert born to be the ornament of thy 
age. Thou hast a lofty soul. Meddle not, then, 
with things too low for thee. 

Peace be with thee, Epictetus, and good 
sense. And let me hear no more complaints of 
slavery. 



OF TEACHING 67 

Epictetus the Slave to his legal owner Epaphroditus 

Whether slavery, Epaphroditus, should be, 
to a philosopher, a matter of indifference, like 
heat or cold, pain and penury, and the calumny 
of the vulgar, is a question to which, in spite 
of your admonition, I must return. So far as I 
am merely a philosopher, your arguments have 
weight. I can school myself to endure the in- 
convenience of the outward state, while I re- 
treat into the inner sanctuary where thought is 
free. 

But you have imposed upon me another 
duty. Your ambition is that I should not only 
possess my soul in patience, but that I also 
should teach the nature of that virtue which be- 
fits free men. If I should teach only the servile 
virtues, I should lose all value in your eyes. 
You would throw me on the market for what I 
might fetch while you invested in more valu- 
able human property. 

The question comes to this, Is it possible for 
a man to be a slave and at the same time be a 
faithful teacher of the truth ? Before we answer 
this question, we must consider the nature of 



68 CONCERNING THE LIBERTY 

truth. Can you, Epaphroditus, with all your 
wealth buy the truth, and show a clear title 
to it? If so, you, having a superfluity of this 
commodity, may send me to sell some of it 
in the open market. 

I go to the market and cry: " Here am I, Epic- 
tetus, the slave of Epaphroditus, and I will sell 
you some of my master's truth. It is the truth 
he lives by, and he is willing to sell it cheap." 
Will not the free-born youths laugh as they 
bargain with me, " There are the cast-off moral 
garments of Nero's courtier Epaphroditus. Truly 
they seem little the worse for wear. But how 
did this slave come into the possession of so 
much truth ? It looks suspicious. Perhaps he is 
only the receiver of stolen goods." 

It is impossible for me to teach the truth in 
that way. No one will receive it. People are 
willing to receive the gold of Epaphroditus, but 
not his truth. Not all my skill in argument 
would make them believe it genuine. 

The truth, Epaphroditus, is not a commodity 
that can thus be bought and sold ; it can only 
be seen and obeyed. And it can only be seen 
and obeyed by free men. And when it is obeyed, 



OF TEACHING 69 

it must be obeyed unto the uttermost. It toler- 
ates no other master. You ask me to teach in 
such a way as not to interfere with your chosen 
way of life or with the society of which you are 
a part. How can I do this and still be a teacher? 
I might keep a true thought a close prisoner in 
my own mind. But the teacher does not hold 
his thought ; he releases it. It straightway flies to 
another mind and urges it to action. How can 
you expect your lame slave to follow his freed 
thoughts that now have entered into minds 
more enterprising and courageous than his own? 
If I teach justice, how can I prevent some quick- 
witted young man from doing a just deed that 
may disturb the business of my master? 

Should I teach what to my own mind seems 
false, you would then hear it said, "Epaphro- 
ditus has been fooled. His moral philosopher on 
whom he set so high a price has proved to be 
a vulgar fraud." 

You ask me to teach truth, but to beware of 
making specific applications of it. It is as if you 
had commanded one to strike a light, but to 
prevent it from shining. It is the nature of the 
light to shine, and we can do nothing against 



70 CONCERNING THE LIBERTY 

nature. I do not need to point out applications 
of truth. Those who hear apply it. 

When ardent youths come to me and I say 
to them, "Resist the doer of an unrighteous 
deed," how can I prevent some of the more 
intelligent and headstrong from saying, " He 
means that we should resist Epaphroditus " ? 

How can I hinder such dangerous applica- 
tion of my doctrine ? 

You ask me to teach the difference between 
the just and the unjust. Then I must be allowed 
freedom to point out the living examples of 
each. 

Suppose that I were your charioteer and you 
should say, "Epictetus, drive me swiftly through 
the crowded streets to the Forum, and then out 
along the Appian Way to the sixth milestone, 
and returning to the city, take me to the Circus 
Maximus. In order that you may obey me im- 
plicitly I will blind your eyes." 

I should answer, with as much respect as was 
possible: "My master, were you the charioteer 
and were you carrying me through the streets, I 
should submit to be blindfolded without a mur- 
mur. But if I am to be the charioteer, I must 



OF TEACHING 71 

ask to be allowed to use my own eyes. I ask 
this free use of my own faculties, not for my 
own sake, but for your sake and the chariot's." 
The teacher is the charioteer along the crowded 
ways where Truth and Falsehood jostle. He 
must be able to see and choose the right way. 
This is a freeman's work and to entrust it to a 
slave is to invite disaster. Therefore, Epaphro- 
ditus, if you determine that I am to remain 
your slave, give me a task which a slave can 
properly perform. 



THE CHARM OF SEVENTEENTH- 
CENTURY PROSE 



PROSE is what all of us write when we 
are able to write nothing else. Poetry has 
charm, at least in the mind of the poet, or he 
would not write it. But Prose is the Cinderella 
of literature and must mind the pots and kettles 
while her proud sisters go to the ball. 

But now and then the Fairy Godmother ap- 
pears, and Cinderella has her fling. She has for 
a little time, "beauty for ashes, the garment of 
praise for the spirit of heaviness." Just as there 
are periods when genius expresses itself in a 
lyric or dramatic form, so there are periods 
when it expresses itself in narrative or even 
didactic prose. 

The sixteenth century was an age favorable 
to poetry. Its spirit was one of romantic expec- 
tation. All sorts of dazzling possibilities opened 
up to the excited imagination. Men found the 
ordinary speech inadequate. 



XVII -CENTURY PROSE 73 

Stout Sir Thomas Stuckley of Ilfracombe, 
when he talked with Queen Elizabeth about his 
plantation in Florida, began to rhapsodize. He 
would not exchange his prospects in Florida 
for anything that could be offered him in the 
courts of Europe. 

" I hope," said the Queen, " I may hear 
from you when you are seated in your princi- 
pality." 

" I will write unto you," quoth Stuckley. 

" In what language ? " said the Queen. 

" In the language of princes," said Stuckley: 
"To our dear sister." 

When merchant adventurers adopted the 
language of princes, they would prefer the 
" Faerie Queene " to any prosaic textbook on 
Ethics. There was the exhilaration which comes 
when great revolutionary ideas are in the air, 
which have not yet been reduced to inconven- 
ient action. Young men dreamed dreams and 
old men saw visions, and left the next genera- 
tion to pay the bills. 

When the spacious times of great Elizabeth 
had passed into history, the bills for the six- 
teenth-century improvements in Civilization 



74 THE CHARM OF 

became due. The theory of civil and religious 
liberty had been adopted, but now the practical 
consequences must be considered. Who was to 
pay for the new freedom ? 

Now, when men begin to talk about ways 
and means to make both ends meet, they are 
more apt to use prose than poetry. They are 
likely also to lose their tempers. After the tri- 
umph of Protestantism in England there came 
the period of internal strife — Parliament against 
the King, Churchman against Puritan, and every 
one against that " world-hating and world-hated 
beast the haggard Anabaptist." Law-abiding 
citizens were appalled at the new broods of 
anarchists. Whether they were called Ranters, 
or Quakers, or Root-and-Branch men, or Fifth 
Monarchy men, they pestered quiet people, 
and interfered with business. They perpetuated 
the social unrest. There 's one phrase that con- 
tinually occurs — "these are distracted times." 

To persons of a quiet habit it seemed to mark 
the breaking-up of Civilization. Churches were 
ruined, property rights ignored, clergy deprived 
of their livings, the hereditary aristocracy de- 
graded from its place of power, the Constitution 



XVII -CENTURY PROSE 75 

overthrown, and at last the anointed King tried 
and executed as a common traitor. 

And yet it was in this period of bitter civil 
war that we have one of the flowering times of 
English literature. And what is more remark- 
able is, that it is to this period of strife that we 
go back to find health and a sense of leisure. It 
was the age of George Herbert and Izaak Wal- 
ton, of Thomas Fuller, of Jeremy Taylor, of 
John Milton, of Clarendon and John Bunyan. 

If I were to indicate the chief characteristic 
of these men I should say that it was their abil- 
ity to give an uncommon expression to com- 
mon sense. Now, while in practical life com- 
mon sense is looked upon as a virtue, in the 
arts it is often considered to be the sum of all 
villainies. For it is taken as but another name 
for the irremediably commonplace. 

Horace Walpole tells us how one day he met 
Hogarth who insisted on talking at great length 
on his history of English painting. " The rea- 
son," said Hogarth, " why we English do not 
paint better is because we have too much 
common sense." It was before the Cubists had 
shown to what heights painting could rise when 



76 THE CHARM OF 

the inhibitions of common sense were com- 
pletely removed. 

But the criticism was suggestive. Poetry suf- 
fers from too much common sense. Its wings 
are clipped and it cannot soar. Music is of the 
same nature. Grand opera would be impossible 
if the tenor in expressing his affection for his 
ladylove took counsel of his common sense. 
But prose does not need to soar. It is pedes- 
trian in its habit. It is at its best with its feet 
on the solid earth. But with his feet upon the 
ground a man may shuffle along, or limp and 
totter, or he may dawdle on the path or walk 
mincingly till we lose all interest in his uncer- 
tain progression. Or, on the other hand, he may 
walk with a firm, confident stride, as one who 
knows where he is going and who enjoys the 
wholesome exercise. Such a pedestrian would 
not exchange a stout pair of legs for any ordi- 
nary kind of wings. And there is a prose which 
for power to stir us is surpassed only by the 
rarest kind of poetry. 

The characteristic of the great prose-writers 
of the seventeenth century was huge, heroic com- 
mon sense. It was the common sense of middle- 



XVII -CENTURY PROSE 77 

aged gentlemen, not in slippered ease, but in 
fighting trim, and carrying the very least amount 
of adipose tissue. 

Usually common sense arrives at that period 
when the spirit of adventure is dead. It takes 
the form of good-humored cynicism. The pru- 
dential virtues are treated as a residuum after 
the tumults of youth have subsided. So in the 
gulches of the Far West, below some old min- 
ing camp where the gambling spirit once ran 
high, you may see the patient, unemotional 
Chinaman working over the tailings. He gets 
a sufficient living out of what in the wasteful 
days had been allowed to run through the 
sluices. 

There is another kind of prudence. It is ac- 
tive, not passive. It is forward-looking, not rem- 
iniscent. It is a practitioner of preventive med- 
icine for the body politic. 

Think not that Prudence dwells in dark abodes ; 
She scans the Future with the eye of gods. 

The ideal is that of one who, in Miltonic phrase, 
is "a skillful considerer of human things." 

Amid the tumults of the seventeenth century, 
there arose an unusual number of skillful con- 



78 THE CHARM OF 

siderers of human things. Some of them were 
radicals, some of them conservatives. Some 
fought for the King and some for the Parlia- 
ment, but they had certain qualities in common. 
Theirs was the large utterance of men who were 
dealing with big questions. They had no time 
for hair-splitting; there was a manly grasp of 
principles, and acceptance of responsibilities, as 
of those to whom words and deeds corresponded. 
They were all the time dealing with conduct. 
Men took up the pen as they would take up the 
sword, for a worthy cause. How far from the 
temper which we are accustomed to call liter- 
ary is Milton's description of the way in which 
a man fits himself for authorship: "When 
a man writes to the world, he summons 
up all his reason and deliberation to assist 
him, he searches, meditates, is industrious and 
likely consults and confers with his judicious 
friends, after all which done he takes himself to 
be informed in what he writes, as well as any 
that writ before him." This is " the most con- 
summate act of his fidelity and ripeness." 

In that age of exuberant pamphleting, not all 
that was written and printed would stand that 



XVII -CENTURY PROSE 79 

test — certainly not all of Milton's tracts for the 
times. But out of the r mass of passionate and 
even scurrilous invective there emerges a re- 
markable literature, in which common sense is 
transfigured and appears as something romantic. 
Milton has it, so has Jeremy Taylor, and so has 
John Bunyan. You feel that you are in the 
presence of persons who have the valor not of 
ignorance but of experience. 

How characteristic is Jeremy Taylor's praise 
of manly virtue : " Our virtues are but the seed 
when the Grace of God comes upon us first, but 
this grace must be thrown into broken furrows, 
and must twice feel the cold and twice feel the 
heat, and be softened with storms and showers, 
and then it will arise into fruitfulness and har- 
vests. . . . Fathers because they design to have 
their children wise and valiant, apt for counsel 
or for arms, send them to severe governments 
and tie them to study, to hard labor. They 
rejoice when the bold boy strikes a lion with 
his hunting spear, and shrinks not when the 
beast comes to^afFright his early courage. Soft- 
ness is for slaves, for minstrels, for useless per- 
sons, for the fair ox. But the man that designs 



80 THE CHARM OF 

his son for noble employments loves to see him 
pale with study, or panting with labor, hard- 
ened with sufferance, or eminent by dangers. 
And so God dresses us for Heaven/' 

The same appeal to disciplined courage 
which is the note in England is felt in New 
England. A great part of the fame of the Ply- 
mouth and Massachusetts Bay colonists comes 
from the fact that they were their own historians 
and realized the ideal significance of their own 
doings. No orator on Forefathers' Day can do 
better than take his text from some great utter- 
ance of Governor Bradford: "They had a great 
hope and inward zeal of laying some good foun- 
dation." The whole story of the men of the 
Mayflower, their inner and their outward lives, 
is in that pregnant sentence. We read it as Holy 
Writ, and the History of Freedom in America 
is the commentary. 

Or we linger over that other text, which fol- 
lows the list of discouragements to the new un- 
dertakings : " It was answered that all great and 
honorable actions are accompanied with great 
difficulties and must be both enterprised and 
overcome by answerable courages." 



XVII -CENTURY PROSE 81 

Even in the narrative of the most ordinary- 
event there is an arresting quality. Governor 
Winthrop had been guilty of the indiscretion 
of moving his house from Cambridge ; for this 
he was called to account by the fiery Dudley. 
But how admirable is the description of the 
quarrel that ensued : " The deputy began to be 
in a passion and told the Governor that if he 
were so round, he would be round also. So the 
deputy rose in a great fury and passion, and the 
Governor grew very hot also. And they both 
fell into a fury of bitterness. But by the medi- 
ation of the mediators they were soon pacified. 
... So the meeting breaking up without any 
other consideration but the commending of the 
success of it by prayer to the Lord, the Gov- 
ernor brought the deputy onward of his way, 
and every man went to his own home." 

That is only a straightforward narrative of 
one of the commonest incidents of local politics. 
Yet it is told in such a way that it is invested 
with an atmosphere of moral dignity. They were 
angry and sinned not, — at least they did not sin 
against the canons of good literature. 

There was a peculiar flavor to the speech of 



82 THE CHARM OF 

the men of that period which we recognize in 
their most casual talk. We listen to the remark 
of King James I at a dinner table : " He must 
have been a very valiant man who first adven- 
tured upon the eating of an oyster." We have 
all had that thought, but we could not express 
it in that way. 

The fact is that the men of that generation had 
a great advantage over us in the material with 
which they worked. The builder in concrete con- 
struction is careful in his specifications to de- 
mand not only a good quality of Portland cement 
but also a sufficiency of sharp sand. Not only 
must there be something that binds, but there 
must be material that can be bound. 

So in our speech. There is a fluency not to 
say fluidity in our present language which makes 
for easy writing but does not produce structural 
strength. The sentence is flowing or at best a 
sticky mass that does not "set." The words 
themselves are not clean and sharp. They have 
no edge. Words that have been used in so many 
senses that their original significance has been 
forgotten come at length to form only a verbal 
quicksand. 



XVII -CENTURY PROSE 83 

The older writers had at their command an 
abundance of clean, sharp words. It mattered 
little whether the words were Anglo-Saxon or 
Latin in their origin. The important thing was 
that their primary meanings were in the minds 
of both speakers and listeners. The word and 
the thing had not only analogy but an identity. 
It was said of Sir Walter Raleigh, " He seemed 
to be born to be that only which he went 
about." When such men spoke, their 4 words 
fitted their mood. Their utterance was indi- 
vidual, as much their own as their sword 
thrusts. 

Let us compare two forms of speech. Here 
is a sentence from a recent novel : " As he went 
downstairs he halted at the landing, his hand 
going to his forehead, a reflex motion significant 
of a final attempt to achieve the hitherto unat- 
tainable feat of imagining her to be his wife." 
There is something of self-conscious modernity 
in this sentence. The accepted lover is a bundle 
of hesitancies. In the attempt to psychologize 
over his emotions, we are in doubt whether he 
will get downstairs or not; we certainly do not 
see him do it. There is nothing suggested but 



84 THE CHARM OF 

a series of reflex actions which will in all human 
probability come to nothing. 

Now turn to Izaak Walton: "My honest 
scholar, it is now past five of the clock. We 
will fish till nine and then go to breakfast. Go 
you to yonder sycamore tree and hide your 
bottle of drink under the hollow root of it, for 
about that time and in that place we will make 
a brave breakfast with a piece of powdered 
beef and a radish or two, which I have in my 
fish bag. We shall, I warrant you, make a 
good, honest, wholesome, hungry breakfast. 
And I will then give you direction for the mak- 
ing and using of your flies." 

What is the difference ? There is a difference 
not only in the arrangement of the sentences, 
but in the nature of the words. In one case the 
words are listless and indifferent. They look as 
if they had been up late at night and had lost in- 
terest in life. They are self-conscious, as if they 
had just come out of the psychology book and 
were sorry that they had left it. 

In the other case the words have the dew T of 
the morning upon them. They are brisk and 
cheery. They stand erect and look you in the 



XVII -CENTURY PROSE 85 

eye. They are glad to be alive. It is only a 
piece of dried beef and a radish or two that is 
promised, but it is a brave breakfast, a good, 
honest, wholesome, hungry breakfast. We are 
sure of that. The very words make us hungry. 

" It 's only a way of putting things, a mere 
trick of language," do you say ? But language 
is not a trick, it is an expression of personality. 
Find out a man's natural and habitual way of 
expressing himself and you find out a great deal 
about the man. We talk about expressing a 
thought in different language, but are you sure 
that in your paraphrase you have expressed all 
the thought — or if the thought, have you also 
expressed the feeling? 

In the card catalogue of the Boston Library 
there is the title of a book published about a 
hundred years ago. It is "An Attempt to trans- 
late the prophetic part of the Apocalypse of 
St. John into familiar language, by divesting it 
of the metaphors in which it is involved." My 
curiosity was not sufficient to lead me to take 
out the book, but I should imagine that it would 
not be very much like the Apocalypse. 

The attempt to treat literary style apart from 



86 THE CHARM OF 

the personality .of which it is the expression 
leads us unto those regions of scholarship which 
belong to the permanently arid belt. However 
keen the analysis, it does not reveal the secret 
of charm or of force. 

The true lover of literature is discovered by 
the simple test which King Solomon found so 
efficacious when the two women claimed each 
for herself the living child. The critic with Sol- 
omonic gravity lifts his sword to cleave asunder 
the living work of genius. " I will divide the 
word from the thought. I will give to one the 
literary form and to the other the actual mean- 
ing of this passage." Then the literal-minded 
student of literature says, " Divide it." But the 
loving reader cries, "Not so, my Lord. Give 
her the living child, and in no wise slay it." It 
all depends, of course, on the kind of literature 
which we have in mind, whether it is the kind 
that lives, or is the kind that is merely put 
together. 

Bergson in his "Creative Evolution" points 
out the difference between a vital process and 
a manufacture. The manufacturer finds in his 
product exactly what he put into it. The pieces 



XVII -CENTURY PROSE 87 

are put together and form a complete whole. 
But life has an explosive quality about it, and 
each bit into which it explodes has power to 
reproduce itself, and is influenced by a new set 
of circumstances. Therefore, "Life in evolving 
sows itself in an unforeseeable variety of form." 

Now the same thing is true in literary his- 
tory. There are writers who are careful crafts- 
men. Their manufactured works are admirably 
done. They use words which express their 
thoughts with absolute precision. It is a case 
where we find precisely what the manufacturer 
put into it. And yet though we read and ad- 
mire them, we find it difficult to remember 
them. The reason of this is that we are very 
self-centered creatures, and we can't remember 
what other people have thought nearly so well 
as we can what we have been thinking our- 
selves. 

It is here that real genius for expression comes 
in. Some one, in an unforgettable sentence, 
drops a thought into our mind. Henceforth it 
is not his but ours. He was but the sower going 
forth to sow; but our minds form the field, and 
* the harvest is ours. There are books which have 



88 THE CHARM OF 

this germinating power. No matter what the 
original writer thought, their great value is in 
what they cause us to think. " Words that are 
simple/' said the Chinese sage, "but whose 
meanings are far-reaching, are good words." 
There are inner meanings, suggestions and uni- 
versal applications. The Christian Apostle urges 
us to " provoke one another to good w T orks." 
So there are books which do not so much fur- 
nish us with thoughts as provoke us to good 
thinking. In such provocation the form is very 
essential. 

Of this provocative quality, the Bible is the 
supreme example. An old writer says of it, 
" Where the surface doth not laugh with corn, 
the heart thereof within is merry with mines." 
It provokes in us a curiosity which leads us to 
dig for hidden treasure. 

But even the Bible has gained immensely in 
its power over English-speaking people by the 
fact that it was translated at a period when the 
language was peculiarly vital, and the words 
had not lost their explosive power. 

In Scripture texts it is very difficult to change 
the language without a sense of impoverish-" 



XVII - CENTURY PROSE 89 

ment. Any one can test this for himself by 
comparing the King James Version with the 
so-called Twentieth Century Version, whose 
translators state their principle to be to "ex- 
clude all words and phrases not used in current 
English." This version, while it has a value 
of its own, may serve as a criticism of current 
English. 

Read the story of the Nativity. "When 
Herod the King had heard these things he was 
troubled and all Jerusalem with him." This is 
the simplest form of narrative, but it is vital. 
Read it in any time of popular commotion and 
vague unrest. How the words come back as we 
see the troubled rulers and the troubled city. It 
is a text which expresses the feeling which comes 
in a great civic crisis. 

But suppose the preacher were compelled to 
take his text from the Twentieth Century Ver- 
sion. " When King Herod heard the news he 
was much troubled and his anxiety was shared 
by the whole of Jerusalem." Even the person 
least sensitive to literary charm must feel that 
something had happened to the text. "A city 
set upon a hill cannot be hid." These words 



9 o THE CHARM OF 

kindle thought. The Twentieth Century Ver- 
sion reads, " It is impossible for a town that 
stands on a hill to escape notice." These words 
are a verbal wet blanket 

In this praise of the seventeenth-century 
prose I do not mean to cast discredit on our 
own time. We have many excellent writers 
who have contributed to the wealth of our 
literature. 

But for our health's sake it is well now and 
then to escape from our contemporaries and 
enjoy the companionship of men of another 
generation. This is not to say that the former 
times are better than these, but they were dif- 
ferent. To those who need a change the sev- 
enteenth century may be recommended as a 
health resort. 

Every age has its literary fashions and the 
critics who sit in high places and tell us what 
we ought to admire and why. But in spite of 
their excellent reasons we often fret under their 
restrictions. 

But there is no reason whatever why we 
should submit to the tyranny of the contempb- 



XVII -CENTURY PROSE 91 

raneous. Literature cannot be subject to mo- 
nopoly. The reader as the ultimate consumer 
can snap his fingers at both the middleman and 
the producers. His mind is an open port. Ships 
from all centuries can land their cargoes and no 
one can prevent them. If he does not find what 
he likes in one age, he can trade with another. 

To those who have troubles enough of their 
own to make them value literature as a means 
of reinvigoration, the seventeenth century may 
be heartily recommended. There may be found 
good air and good exercise in the compan- 
ionship of men of robust intelligence and 
of unfailing common sense. They had their 
faults, but they never mistook neurasthenia for 
genius. 

It is a literature produced, not by specialists 
or dreamers or by sophisticated spectators, but 
by men of action of whom it could be said as 
it was said of Sir Henry Wotton : " He did 
ever love to join with business study and trial 
of natural experiments." 

Here we may find scholars who left " the 
still air of delightful studies " to engage in the 
strenuous politics of the day. Here we may find 



92 THE CHARM OF 

honest gentlemen who, when the tide of fortune 
was against them, learned to find content by 
the side of quiet streams. 

" Let me tell you," says Izaak Walton, " that 
there be many that have forty times our estates 
who would give the greater part of it to be 
healthful and cheerful like us, who with the 
expense of a little money have eat and drunk 
and laughed and angled and sung, and slept 
securely and rose next day and cast away care 
and laughed and angled again." 

Or we may sit at table with Selden and hear 
him discourse wisely and wittily about the con- 
stitution and laws. 

Or we may listen to that wise physician Sir 
Thomas Browne : "I thank God with joy, I was 
never afraid of hell, nor grew pale at the men- 
tion of that place. I fear God, but I am not 
afraid of him. I can hardly think any one was 
scared into heaven. They go the fairest way 
to heaven that would serve God without a 
hell." 

Not so did John Bunyan feel. He was hor- 
ribly afraid of hell. But what of it? Mr. Honest 
trudges on the difficult road. He has an honest 



XVII -CENTURY PROSE 93 

fear, but he has an honest courage also, and on 
the road can eat as brave a breakfast as any 
angler of them all. 

" How fares it in your pilgrimage ? " asks 
Mr. Contrite. "It happens to us as it happeneth 
to all wayfaring men, sometimes our way is 
clean, sometimes foul, sometimes up hill, some- 
times down. The wind is not always at our 
backs nor is every one a friend whom we meet 
by the way. We have met some notable rubs 
already, and what is yet before we know not, 
but for the most part we find it true that has 
been talked of old, that a good man must 
suffer trouble." 

As we listen to his talk we agree with Mr. 
Great Heart as he cries, "Well said, Father 
Honest ; by this I know that thou art a cock of 
the right kind, for thou hast said the truth." 

Whatever their politics or religion we feel 
that these were men of the right kind, and we 
are glad that they wrote books. 

And if it should happen that there should be 
a strike among living authors and no new books 
should be produced for a year and a day, we 
should not be discouraged. We should call in 



9 4 XVII -CENTURY PROSE 

these sturdy strike-breakers from the seventeenth 
century. With their aid we should, in Bunyan's 
pithy phrase, make " a pretty good shift to wag 
along." 



THOMAS FULLER AND HIS 
"WORTHIES" 



FEBRUARY 23, 1661 (Lord's Day). My 
cold being increased, I staid at home all day 
pleasing myself in my dining-room, now graced 
with pictures, and reading of Dr. Fuller's Wor- 
thys. So I spent the day. ... I reckon myself 
as happy as any man in the world, for which 
God be praised." 

It was indeed a day for comfortable thoughts. 
It was Sunday, and Pepys could, without self- 
reproach, and indeed with a real sense of virtue, 
abstain from worldly business. And Pepys had 
a cold and need not go to church where in those 
days he was quite often irritated by the parsons. 
And here was Fuller's " Worthies of England," 
only recently published and waiting to be read. 
No, it was not the kind of book that insisted 
on being read. Its invitation was of a different 
kind. It was not made to be read. It was rather 



96 THOMAS FULLER AND 

to be opened here and there, and dipped into, 
and tasted. Then the process could be repeated 
as long as one was so disposed. It was just the 
thing for a gentleman who was kept in all Sun- 
day with a cold. 

Pepys had seen the book a short time before 
in a book-stall and dipped into it. But then he 
had an ulterior purpose. He wanted to see if 
any of his ancestors were mentioned in the 
"Worthies of England." Unfortunately, he 
could find no one of the name of Pepys in those 
hospitable pages. Being a sensible person he 
did n't blame Fuller, but drew the rational con- 
clusion that the family was not as considerable 
as he had supposed. 

But now on this fortunate Sunday he had 
nothing to do but to make acquaintance with 
some of the gentlemen of England who attracted 
his attention. No wonder that he had a good 
time. It was a kind of refreshment with which 
he was familiar. After a dull day in the office 
he writes : " To the Privy Seale where I signed 
a deadly number of pardons which do trouble 
me to get nothing by. I fell a reading Fuller's 
History of Abbys." Since that day there have 



HIS " WORTHIES " 97 

been many who have found refreshment in the 
same source. Dear to Charles Lamb was the 
humor of Thomas Fuller. Says Lamb, " Fuller's 
way of telling a story, for its eager liveliness and 
running commentary of the narrator happily 
blended with the narration, is perhaps un- 
equalled." Many have taken in hand, as did 
Lamb himself, to make collections of the " Wit 
and Humor of Thomas Fuller." But these ex- 
cerpts fail to do justice to one whom Coleridge 
declared to be " the most sensible and the least 
prejudiced great man of an age that boasted a 
galaxy of great men." 

For while Fuller's wit flashed in sentences, 
his wisdom required the bulky volumes which 
contain his works. For Fuller was one of the 
most voluminous as well as one of the most 
popular writers of his time. The very bulk of 
his writing adds to the impression of abounding 
good humor. He diffuses around the reader a 
soothing atmosphere of unlimited leisure. He 
has power to exorcise the foul fiends Hurry and 
Worry. 

And yet this most leisurely of writers not only 
lived through the turmoils of the English civil 



98 THOMAS FULLER AND 

wars, but took an active part in them. He was 
a clergyman of the Church of England, a Royal- 
ist by conviction, a chaplain of the King, living 
much in camps, and surrounded by bitter par- 
tisans. He took sides heartily, and for a good 
part of his life he was on the losing side. 

But having made all the personal sacrifices 
necessary to show his loyalty, Fuller drew the 
line beyond which he would not go. He would 
not sacrifice his sanity and good temper even 
for the King and the Church. 

The times were out of joint, but he refused 
to exaggerate the evils of the day. "Many 
things in England are out of joint for the pres- 
ent and a strange confusion there is in Church 
and State, but let this comfort us that it is a con- 
fusion in tendency to order." Had Fuller been 
a professor of History, writing two centuries 
after, he could not have better summed up the 
situation. 

Having come to this philosophic conclusion 
concerning the times Fuller proceeded to make 
the best of the circumstances as they developed. 
He knew he was to be jolted over abominable 
roads of progress at a rate that was disagreeable 



HIS "WORTHIES" 99 

to him, but fortunately his mind was furnished 
with a shock-absorber. Humor was a solace at 
a time when politics was a nightmare. Writ- 
ing of one Bishop Young at the beginning of 
the civil wars, he says, "I heard him preach 
from the text — 4 The waters are risen, O God, 
the waters are risen/ Whereupon he com- 
plained of the invasions of popular violence in 
Church and State. The Bishop was sadly sensi- 
ble of those inundations and yet he safely waded 
through." 

How admirably English that was. There was 
no use denying that fact that the waters were 
risen. But what of it? A sensible clergyman 
would tuck up his cassock and wade through. 
It was in this good-humored way that Fuller 
passed through the days of Puritan ascendancy. 

At the beginning of the troubles he published 
a little volume of homilies entitled, "Good 
Thoughts for Bad Times." A few years after 
there followed, "Good Thoughts for Worse 
Times," and when the cause of the King began 
to mend, "Mixed Contemplations for Better 
Times." It was in mixed contemplation that 
Fuller excelled. 



ioo THOMAS FULLER AND 

He indicates his position in regard to many 
of the controversies of his time. " There dwelt 
not long since a devout but ignorant papist in 
Spain. Every morning bending his knees and 
lifting his eyes to heaven he would repeat the 
alphabet. And now he said; O good God put 
these letters together to spell syllables and to 
make such sense as may be to thy glory and my 
good. ... In these distracted times I fall to 
the poor pious man's prayer A. B. C. D. etc." 

As to the main question to be decided Fuller's 
ideas were clear enough, but when it came to 
the particular measures over which his contem- 
poraries contended, he insisted on a suspense of 
judgment. 

As for the zealous cries for more liberty, he 
thought the age was sufficiently supplied with 
that commodity. " It were liberty enough if for 
the next seven years all sermons were obliged 
to keep residence on the text, 'Love one an- 
other.' . . ." Too many nowadays are like Pha- 
raoh's magicians who could conjure up with their 
charms new frogs, but could not drive away the 
frogs that were there before. 

Turn from the pamphlets of the day with their 



HIS "WORTHIES" 101 

fierce invective to Fuller's little homily on the 
Psalms. We suddenly seem to have entered a 
haven of reasonableness. 

"Sometimes I have disputed with myself 
which was the most guilty, David who said in 
his haste all men are liars, or that wicked man 
who sat and spoke against his brother and slan- 
dered his mother's son. David seems the greater 
offender, for mankind might have an action of 
defamation against him. Yea, he might be chal- 
lenged for giving all men the lie. But mark : 
David was in haste, he spoke as it were in tran- 
situ> when he was passing, or rather posting by; 
or if you please it was not David, but David's 
haste that rashly vented the words. Whereas 
the other sat, a solemn, serious, premeditate 
posture. Now to say sat carries with it the counte- 
nance of a judicial proceeding, as if he made a 
session or bench business thereof. Lord pardon 
my cursory and preserve me from sedentary 
sins." 

Fuller was too much a man of his own time 
to avoid controversy. For a theologian to have 
declined to enter the lists against his foeman 
would be as unpardonable as for an officer to 



ioa THOMAS FULLER AND 

decline a challenge to a duel. He must yield to 
the imperious custom and vindicate his honor. 

Fuller's "Appeal of Injured Innocence/' in 
answer to his adversary Dr. Heylin, is as lengthy 
and circumstantial as the seventeenth-century 
code required. It is as voluminous as if the 
reader had nothing to do but sit listening to the 
quarrels of the authors. Everything which Dr. 
Heylin has asserted, Dr. Fuller denies. Nothing 
could be more complete in form. Then, when 
we come to the end we see the warlike theo- 
logical mask fall off and the round, smiling 
face of Tom Fuller reveals itself. 

44 You know full well, sir, how in heraldry two 
lioncels rampant endorsed are said to be the em- 
blem of two valiant men keeping an appoint- 
ment, meeting in the field but either forbidden 
by the King to fight or departing on terms 
of equality agreed upon betwixt themselves. 
Whereupon turning back to back, neither con- 
querors nor conquered, they depart their several 
ways (their stout stomachs not suffering both to 
go the same way) lest it be counted an injury 
for one to precede the other. In a like manner I 
know you disdain to allow me to be your equal 



HIS " WORTHIES " 103 

in this controversy, and I will not allow you to be 
my superior. To prevent future trouble let it be 
a drawn battle, and let both of us abound in our 
own sense, severally persuaded in the truth of 
what we have written. Thus parting and going 
out, back to back, I hope we may meet in 
Heaven, face to face. In order whereunto, God 
willing, I will give you a meeting where you 
shall be pleased to appoint, that we who have 
tilted pens may shake hands together." He signs 
himself, "A lover of your parts and an honorour 
of your person." 

It was not thus that the men of the seven- 
teenth century usually carried on their contro- 
versies. Fuller was a Royalist, but the most zeal- 
ous Parliament man could not apply to him 
the common term of reproach for his party — 
"malignant." He had, as he said of another, "a 
broad-chested soul, favorable to such as differed 
with him." 

We take up a little volume of sermons pub- 
lished in 1656, and linger over the dedicatory 
epistle: "To my worthy friends in St. Bridgets 
Parish in London, Jacob when sending his sons 
into Egypt advised them to carry to the Gover- 



104 THOMAS FULLER AND 

nor there a little balm, a little honey, spices and 
myrrh, nuts and almonds. . . / The quantity a 
little of each. To carry much would have been 
less acceptable." 

Fuller was a peace-lover, but he was not a 
thoroughgoing pacifist. Much as he desired that 
all good people in England should keep strict 
residence in the text, " Love one another," he 
saw that they were not likely to do it till they 
had exchanged a few more stout blows. They 
were not for the present in the mood to accept 
much in the way of good-will. But at least he 
could do his bit and in wartime prepare for the 
inevitable peace. While the other parsons were 
smiting the Amalekites, he could in the midst 
of the distracted times bring to his friends a little 
honey, spices, and myrrh. No one knew better 
than Fuller that "to carry much would have 
been less acceptable." 

He was under no illusions. He was well aware 
that good temper toward his adversaries would 
bring upon him the charge of lukewarmness to- 
ward his friends. It would be difficult to keep 
close to his own party. But he comforted him- 
self with the thought that he was like a man in 



HIS "WORTHIES" 105 

the crowded fair. If, instead of nervously run- 
ning about to find his friends, he took a stand 
in a central place, they would be likely to come 
his way at least once during the day. 

While he was aware that his own gifts did 
not lie in the direction of invective, he did not 
object to explosions of holy wrath on fit occa- 
sions, and he writes admiringly of that excellent 
clergyman William Perkins, " He could pro- 
nounce the word damn with such emphasis as 
left a doleful echo in the hearer's mind a long 
time after." What he objected to was the type 
of man, too common in his day, who in the 
name of truth renounced brotherly kindness. 
44 He was made all teeth and tongue biting what- 
ever he touched, and it bled whenever it bit." 

It was in the times of the greatest distraction, 
when Fuller's own livelihood was most precari- 
ous that he wrote the two masterpieces of lei- 
sure, " The Worthies of England " and " The 
Church History of Britain," books which seem 
to be written by one who had all the time in 
the world at his disposal. Fuller's " Church His- 
tory " was written as no church history had been 
written before or since. It has no natural begin- 



106 THOMAS FULLER AND 

ning or end. There is no logical sequence ; no 
hint of development in doctrine or policy. For 
all Fuller cares the centuries might have been 
reversed and the story told backwards. 

The impression that we get is that the Church 
of England had always been there and had always 
been essentially the same. It w r as a part of the 
landscape. It was connected with the county 
families. It was entwined with all that was most 
attractive in English life. Indeed, Fuller is not 
so much interested in the Church as in the peo- 
ple who belonged to it. He stops to tell us 
about their coats of arms because he thinks wc 
might like to know about them. 

It is such a rambling commentary as might 
be given us by a genial dean of a cathedral, who 
takes us about telling us of the knights and 
ladies whose monuments we see. They lived 
long ago, but their descendants are still in pos- 
session of the old estates. Moreover, Fuller's 
leisurely ramble through the centuries is inter- 
rupted by the claims of hospitality. He was liv- 
ing precariously and was entertained by one 
Royalist gentleman after another. It occurred 
to him that it would be a waste of good literary 



HIS "WORTHIES" 107 

material to dedicate his whole history to a single 
benefactor leaving the others unacknowledged. 
So he conceived the idea of dedicating each 
chapter of his "Church History" to a different 
patron. It thus happens that the Church of Eng- 
land is often forgotten for whole pages while 
we listen to the praises of Fuller's many friends. 
But it is all pleasant and familiar, and deepens 
the impression that the Church of England is 
essentially a family affair and has its roots in 
the family affections. 

Even in his description of the great revolu- 
tionary events Fuller retains the intimate tone 
of one who is in a little circle of friends. There 
is no attempt at the impartial dignity of history. 
If he tells what happens, he takes it for granted 
that we should like to know what he thinks 
about it. 

Charles Lamb might have written the account 
of what followed on the dissolution of the mon- 
asteries : — 

"As the old clothes dealers of Long Lane 
when they buy an old suit buy the linings to- 
gether with the outside, so those that bought 
the buildings of the Monasteries had also the 



108 THOMAS FULLER AND 

libraries conveyed to them. The curious brasses 
and clasps were the baits of covetousness, and 
many excellent old authors were left naked. 
Some ancient manuscripts were sold to grocers 
and soap sellers, some to scour candlesticks, 
some to rub boots, and whole ships full sent 
abroad to undoing of foreign nations. 

"What beautiful bibles, rare fathers, subtle 
schoolmen, useful historians, all massacred to- 
gether. Holy divinity was profaned, physic it- 
self hurt, and the history of former time received 
a dangerous wound, whereof it halts to this day, 
and without hope of a perfect cure must go a 
cripple to the grave. 

" Some will say that I herein discover a hark- 
ing after the onions and flesh pots of Egypt. 
To such I protest that I have not the least in- 
clination to monkery. But enough. As for these 
back-friends of learning whom I have jogged 
in my discourse, we will let them alone to be 
settled in the lees of their own ignorance, pray- 
ing God that never a good library be left to 
their disposal." 

One may say that this is no way to write his- 
tory. Fuller would answer that it was his way. 



HIS " WORTHIES " 109 

"We read of King Ahasuerus that having 
his head troubled with much business and find- 
ing himself so indisposed that he could not sleep, 
he caused the records to be brought in to him 
hoping thereby to deceive the tediousness of 
the time, and that the pleasant passages in the 
chronicles would either invite slumber or enable 
him to bear waking with less molestation. We 
live in a troublesome age and he needs to have 
a soft bed who can sleep nowadays amidst so 
much loud noise and many impetuous rumors. 
Wherefore it seemeth to me both a safe and 
cheap receipt to procure quiet and repose to the 
mind that complains of want of rest to prescribe 
the reading of History. Great is the pleasure 
and profit thereof." 

In following his own humor Fuller may have 
transgressed many of the conventions of formal 
history for which he finds ready pardon. 

Our mining law declares that "A man is en- 
titled to his vein and all its dips, spurs, and 
angles, although it may depart so far from the 
perpendicular as to pass the side lines of the 
location within the plane of the lines extended." 

Fuller would have paid no attention to the 



no THOMAS FULLER AND 

perpendicular lines limiting his subject and di- 
viding the "Church History of Britain" from 
other interesting objects of thought. The lover 
of Fuller's vein is content to follow it through 
all its dips and spurs and angles, without regard 
to the side lines of the location. If we do not 
find what we expected, we find something else 
which is of more value. 

And after all, I am not sure but that Fuller 
may have given us an essential truth which the 
more systematic historians often overlook. 

He gives the same impression which one gets 
when he lingers in rural England. The village 
church with its ancient yew tree, the church- 
yard where the generations lie, the rectory hard 
by, the cathedral and its close; these do not 
speak of events to be narrated. They speak of 
something permanent; they are deep-rooted in 
the English earth; they represent a life mellow 
and fruitful. The successive generations might 
well be thought of as contemporaneous, living 
as they do in an environment that has been so 
constant. This is only one aspect of history, but 
it is an important one, and one that is often 
ignored. 



HIS " WORTHIES » in 

It is a far cry from Fuller's "Worthies of 
England" to the "Spoon River Anthology," but 
the fundamental idea of the two works is the 
same. It occurred to our present-day .anthologist 
to take the worthies and the unworthies of an 
American village and sum up their characteris- 
tics with all the brevity and more than the ve- 
racity which we associate with the epitaph. Fuller 
had the advantage of having all England for his 
province and also the advantage of liking most 
of his worthies. 

He takes England by counties. He introduces 
us to the people that have been most noteworthy. 
They are not confined to any one generation. 
The "Worthies" are Catholic or Protestant, they 
are country gentlemen, statesmen, physicians, 
privateers, clergymen, lawyers. Some of them 
have great names in history, others live now only 
in these pages. But Fuller manages in a sentence 
or two to make us see what manner of persons 
they were. Each little portrait has an unmis- 
takable individuality. 

I know nothing of Bishop Foliot but what 
Fuller tells us, but I feel remarkably well ac- 
quainted with him: "He was observed when a 



ii2 THOMAS FULLER AND 

common brother to inveigh against the prior; 
when prior he inveighed against the abbot; when 
abbot against the pride and laziness of the bishop. 
When he was a bishop, all was well. Foliot's 
mouth when full was silent." 

As Foliot represents a certain kind of reformer, 
so Fuller gives us a sketch of a certain kind of 
philanthropist: "I have observed some in the 
Church cast in a sixpence with such ostentation 
that it rebounded from the bottom and rung 
against both sides of the basin — so that the same 
piece of silver was alms and the trumpet." 

Of one Allyn he writes : " He made friends 
of his unrighteous mammon building therewith 
a fair college at Dulwich, for the relief of the 
poor people. Some, I confess, count it built on 
a foundered foundation, seeing in a spiritual 
sense none is good and lawful money save what 
is honestly gotten. But perchance some who 
condemn master Allyn have as bad a shilling in 
the bottom of their purses, if search were made 
in them." 

Here we have an example of Fuller's capac- 
ity for mixed contemplation. He has a shrewd 
suspicion of tainted money, but his common 



HIS "WORTHIES" 113 

sense makes him perceive that it is not a sim- 
ple matter to prevent its being put to good 
uses. He rejoices in the fair college at Duiwich 
in spite of the question in regard to Master 
Allyn. 

What sound philosophy is put into the sen- 
tence which tells of the mediaeval schoolman 
John Baconthorpe: "He groped after more 
light than he saw; he saw more than he durst 
speak of; and he spoke of more than he was 
thanked for by those of his superstitious order." 

He stood in strong contrast to that Saxon 
king known as Ethelred the Unready: "The 
clock of his consultations was always set some 
hours too late, vainly striving with much in- 
dustry to redress what a little providence might 
have prevented. Now when this unready king 
met with the Danes, his ever ready enemies, no 
wonder if lamentable was the event thereof." 

It is to Fuller that we owe the picture of the 
"wit combats" between Shakespeare and Ben 
Jonson compared to a battle between a Spanish 
galleon and an English man-of-war. "Master 
Jonson like the former was built far higher in 
learning, solid but slow in performance. Shake- 



ii 4 THOMAS FULLER AND 

speare, with the English man-of-war, lesser in bulk 
but lighter in starting, could turn with all tides, 
tack about, and take advantage of all winds." 

What delights us in " The Worthies of Eng- 
land " is to find that Shakespeare and the great 
men whose names are familiar are not set apart 
but take their places with the multitude of men 
of the same breed. We are made to feel that 
men of strong character and fine gifts were too 
common in England to be made much of. 
Fame seems almost a vulgarity. 

Sometimes Fuller comes across a worthy for 
whom he can do nothing but snatch his name 
from oblivion. 

He says of Robert Vanite. "This put me to 
blushing that one so eminent in himself should 
be obscure to me. But all my industry could 
not retrieve the valiant knight, so that he seems 
to me akin to those spirits who appear but once 
and then vanish away." 

There are more heroic figures in the seven- 
teenth century than the Royalist parson whom 
his contemporaries called "Tom Fuller," and 
whom those who came after quoted as "Old 
Thomas Fuller." "Old" was an adjective never 



HIS " WORTHIES" 115 

appropriate to him save as a term of affection- 
ate familiarity. 

But if heroism consists in being faithful to 
one's own ideals rather than to those imposed 
by one's contemporaries I am not sure but that he 
deserved the title "heroic." When men are mak- 
ing a religion of hating one another, it requires 
some courage to follow one's own generous 
inclination. Sanity may in time of fanaticism be 
lifted to heroic proportions. To love one's ene- 
mies, or rather to assent to the proposition that 
it is virtuous to love one's enemies, is often easier 
than to treat them as ordinary human beings 
who are very troublesome at present, but who 
may be better by and by. This was Fuller's habit- 
ual attitude. In pleading for moderation he was 
careful to distinguish it from lukewarmness. 
The moderate men are commonly attacked by 
both extreme parties. But what of it? "As the 
moderate man's temporal hopes are not great, 
so his fears are the less. He fears not to have 
the splinters of his party when it breaks fly into 
his eyes, or to be buried under the ruins of his 
side, if suppressed. He never pinned his religion 
on any man's sleeve." 



n6 THOMAS FULLER 

He was fortunate in his life, making friends 
in adversity, and giving cheer to those who 
sadly needed it. And death came in time to pre- 
vent a catastrophe which might have obscured 
for us that which is most distinctive. 

For Charles the Second was about to make 
him a bishop. This would have been a calamity. 
Thomas Fuller would have made a very poor 
bishop. 



A LITERARY CLINIC 



THE other day, on going by my friend 
Bagster's church, I saw a new sign over 
the vestry : — 

" Bibliopathic Institute. Book Treatment by 
Competent Specialists. Dr. Bagster meets pa- 
tients by appointment. Free Clinic 2-4 p.m. 
Out-patients looked after in their homes by 
members of the Social Service Department. 
Young People's Lend-a-Thought Club every 
Sunday evening at 7.30. Tired Business Men 
in classes. Tired Business Men's tired wives 
given individual treatment. Tired mothers who 
are reading for health may leave their children 
in the Day Nursery." 

It had been several years since I had seen 
Bagster. At that time he had been recuperating 
after excessive and too widely diffused efforts 
for the public good. Indeed, the variety of his 
efforts for the public good had been too much 



n8 A LITERARY CLINIC 

for him. Nothing human was foreign to Bagster. 
All sorts of ideas flocked from the ends of the 
earth and claimed citizenship in his mind. No 
matter how foreign the idea might be, it was 
never interned as an alien enemy. The result 
was he had suffered from the excessive immi- 
gration of ideas that were not easily assimilated 
by the native stock. I have sometimes thought 
that it might have been better if he had not al- 
lowed these aliens a controlling influence till 
they had taken out their first naturalization 
papers. But that was not Bagster's way. 

Dropping into what once was known as the 
vestry of the church, but which is now the office 
of the Institute, I found a row of patients sitting 
with an air of expectant resignation. A business- 
like young woman attempted to put my name 
on an appointment card. I mumbled an ex- 
cuse to the effect that I was a friend of the doc- 
tor and wished to remain so, and therefore would 
not call during office-hours. 

The next day I was fortunate enough to find 
Bagster in one of his rare periods of leisure and 
to hear from his own lips an account of his new 
enterprise. 



A LITERARY CLINIC 119 

"You know," he said, "I was unfortunate 
enough to be out of health several years ago, at 
the time when the ministers began to go into 
Psychotherapy. I liked the idea and would 
have gone into it too, but I had to let my mind 
lie fallow for a while. It seemed too bad not to 
have a clinic. We ought all to be healthier than 
we are, and if we could get the right thoughts 
and hold on to them, we should get rid of a good 
many ills. Even the M.D.'s admit that. I read 
up on the subject and started in to practice as 
soon as I got back. For a while, everything went 
well. When a patient came I would suggest to 
him a thought which he should hold for the ben- 
efit of his soul and body." 

"What was the difficulty with the treat- 
ment?" 

"The fact is," said Bagster, "I ran out of 
thoughts. It's all very well to say, 'Hold a 
thought.' But what if there is n't anything you 
can get a grip on? You know the law of the 
association of ideas. That 's where the trouble 
lies. An idea will appear to be perfectly reli- 
able, and you think you know just where to 
find it. But it falls in with idle associates and 



ioo A LITERARY CLINIC 

plays truant. When you want it, it isn't there. 
And there are a lot of solid thoughts that have 
been knocking about in the minds of everybody 
till their edges are worn off. You can't hold 
them. A thought to be held must be interest- 
ing. When I read that in the Psychology, I 
was staggered. 

44 To be interesting, a thought must pass 
through the mind of an interesting person. In 
the process something happens to it. It is no 
longer an inorganic substance, but it is in such 
form that it can easily be assimilated by other 
minds. It is these humanized and individual- 
ized thoughts that can be profitably held. 

44 Then it struck me that this is what litera- 
ture means. Here we have a stock of thoughts 
in such a variety of forms that they can be used 
not only for food, but for medicine. 

44 During the last year, I have been working 
up a system of Biblio-therapeutics. I don't pay 
much attention to the purely literary or histor- 
ical classifications. I don't care whether a book 
is ancient or modern, whether it is English or 
German, whether it is in prose or verse, whether 
it is a history or a collection of essays, whether 



A LITERARY CLINIC iai 

it is romantic or realistic. I only ask, * What is 
its therapeutic value ?'" 

He went on didactically, as if he were ad- 
dressing a class. 

"A book may be a stimulant or a sedative or 
an irritant or a soporific. The point is that it 
must do something to you, and you ought to 
know what it is. A book may be of the nature of 
a soothing syrup or it may be of the nature of a 
mustard plaster. The question for you to decide 
is whether in your condition you need to have 
administered soothing syrup or a mustard plaster. 

" Literary critics make a great to-do about 
the multiplication of worthless or hurtful books. 
They make lists of good, bad, and indifferent. 
But in spite of this outcry, there is nothing so 
harmless as printed matter when it is left to 
itself. A man's thoughts never occupy so little 
space or waste so little of his neighbor's time as 
when neatly printed and pressed between the 
covers of a book. There they lie without power 
of motion. What if a book is dull ? It can't 
follow you about. It can't button-hole you and 
say, 4 One word more.' When you shut up a 
book, it stays shut. 



iaa A LITERARY CLINIC 

" The true function of a literary critic is not 
to pass judgment on the book, but to diagnose 
the condition of the person who has read it. 
What was his state of mind before reading and 
after reading? Was he better or worse for his 
experience? 

" If a book is dull, that is a matter between 
itself and its maker, but if it makes me duller 
than I should otherwise have been, then my 
family has a grievance. To pass judgment on 
the books on a library shelf without regard to 
their effects is like passing judgment on the 
contents of a drug store from the standpoint of 
mineralogy, without regard to physiology. In 
the glass jars are crystals which are mineralogi- 
cally excellent — but are they good to eat ? 

" The sensible man does not jump at conclu- 
sions, but asks expert advice. But many per- 
sons, when they take up a highly recommended 
book, feel in conscience bound to go through to 
the bitter end, whether it is good for them or not. 

"From my point of view, a book is a literary 
prescription put up for the benefit of some one 
who needs it. It may be simple or compounded 
of many ingredients. The ideas may unite in 



A LITERARY CLINIC ia 3 

true chemical union or they may be insoluble 
in one another and form an emulsion. 

" The essays of Emerson form an emulsion. 
The sentences are tiny globules of wisdom 
which do not actually coalesce, but remain sus- 
pended in one another. They should be shaken 
before using. 

" Maeterlinck contains volatile elements which 
easily escape the careless readers. Chesterton's 
essays contain a great deal of solid common 
sense, but always in the form of an effervescent 
mixture. By mixing what we think with what 
we think we think, this effervescence invariably 
results. 

" Dante, we are told, belonged to the Guild 
of the Apothecaries. It was an excellent train- 
ing for a literary man. Some writers, like Dean 
Swift, always present truth in an acid form. 
Others prefer to add an edulcorant or sweetener. 

" Of this Edulcorating School was Thomas 
Fuller, who tells how he compounded his His- 
tory. ■ I did not so attemper my history to the 
palate of the government so as to sweeten it 
with any falsehood, but I made it palatable, so 
as not to give any wilful disgust to those in 



i2 4 A LITERARY CLINIC 

present power, and procure danger to myself by 
using over-tart or bitter expressions better for- 
borne than inserted — without any prejudice to 
the truth.' 

"A book being a literary prescription, it 
should be carefully put up. Thus I learned, in 
looking up the subject, that a proper prescrip- 
tion contains : — 

44 (l) A basis or chief ingredient, intended to 
cure. 

" (2) An adjuvant, to assist the action and 
make it cure more quickly. 

44 (3) A corrective, to prevent or lessen any 
undesirable effect. 

44 (4) A vehicle or excipient, to make it suita- 
ble for administration and pleasant to the patient 

44 1 do not propose to go into literary phar- 
macy more than to say that there are sufficient 
tests of what is called literary style. In regard 
to a book, I ask, Does it have any basis or chief 
ingredient ? Does the Author furnish any cor- 
rective for his own exaggerations ? Above all, 
is the remedy presented in a pleasant vehicle or 
excipient, so that it will go down easily ? 

44 1 have said," continued Bagster, 44 that cer- 



A LITERARY CLINIC 125 

tain books are stimulants. They do not so much 
furnish us with thoughts as set us to thinking. 
They awaken faculties which we had allowed to 
be dormant. After reading them we actually 
feel differently and frequently we act differently. 
The book is a spiritual event. 

" Books that are true stimulants are not pro- 
duced every year. They are not made to order, 
but are the products of original minds under 
the stress of peculiar circumstances. Each gen- 
eration produces some writer who exerts a 
powerfully stimulating influence on his contem- 
poraries, stirring emotion and leading to action. 
The book does something. 

"So Carlyle stimulated his generation to 
work, and Ruskin stimulated it to social serv- 
ice and to the appreciation of Art. Tolstoy 
stimulated the will to self-sacrifice, and Nietz- 
sche has overestimated the will to power. 
Rousseau furnished the stimulant to his genera- 
tion both to a political and educational revolu- 
tion. In the sixteenth century, Lord Burleigh 
said of John Knox, * His voice is able in an 
hour to put more life in us than six hundred 
trumpets blaring in our ears.' 



126 A LITERARY CLINIC 

" When the stimulants are fresh, there is no 
difficulty in getting them into use. Indeed, the 
difficulty is in enforcing moderation. The book 
with a new emotional appeal is taken up by 
the intelligent young people, who form the vol- 
unteer poison squad. If the poison squad sur- 
vives, the book gets into general circulation 
among the more elderly readers whose motto is 
4 Safety first/ 

" It is to be noticed that the full stimulating 
effect of most books is lessened after they have 
been kept long in stock. When to-day you un- 
cork Rousseau, nothing pops. Calvin's Insti- 
tutes had a most powerfully stimulating effect 
upon the more radical young people of his day. 
It is now between three and four centuries since 
it has been exposed to the air, and it has lost 
its original effervescence. 

" We must also take into effect the well-known 
principle of immunization. When a writer sets 
forth in a book certain powerful ideas, they may 
produce very little disturbance because every- 
body has had them before. There was a time 
when the poems of Byron were considered to be 
very heady. Young men went wild over them. 



A LITERARY CLINIC 127 

They stimulated them to all sorts of unusual 
actions. They modified their collars and their 
way of wearing their hair. Young men may 
still, as a part of their college education, read 
'The Corsair/ but this required reading does not 
impel them toward a career of picturesque and 
heartbroken piracy. Pessimism has its fashions, 
and to-day it is realistic rather than romantic 
and sentimental. 

" It is hard to get a blameless youth to enjoy 
the spiritual exultation that comes from the 
sense of romantic guilt, and a vast unquench- 
able revenge for the unfathomable injuries that 
came from the fact that he was born with a 
superior mind. But that was what our great-grand- 
fathers felt when Byronism was in its early 
bloom. It was a feeling at once cosmical and 
egotistical. When we look at the placid, respect- 
able portraits of our ancestors of the early nine- 
teenth century, we can get no idea of the way 
in which they inwardly raged and exulted as 
they read, — 

M The mind that broods on guilty woes 
Is like a scorpion girt with fire 
In circle narrowing as it glows, 
The flames around the captive close 



128 A LITERARY CLINIC 

Till inly searched with thousand throes. 

And maddening in her ire 
One sole and sad relief she knows, 
The sting she nourished for her foes. 

44 4 That means me/ says the promising young 
reader as he inwardly rages because he is girt in 
by a commonplace community that stupidly 
refuses to acknowledge itself as his foe — in 
fact, does n't know that he 's there. What he 
wants is a foe on whom he can vent his poetic 
ire. When he can't find one, he falls into a 
mood of delicious self-pity. 

" The vacant bosom's wilderness 

Might thank the pain that made it less ; 
We loathe what none are left to share* 
Even bliss. 



The keenest pangs the wretched find 

Are rapture to the dreary void, 
The leafless desert of the mind, 
The waste of feeling unemployed. 

" There you have it. In each generation the 
pathetic consciousness of youth is of the waste 
of feeling unemployed. Byron appealed to the 
spiritually unemployed. But as an employment 
agent he was less successful. The only employ- 
ment he suggested was a general vindictiveness. 



A LITERARY CLINIC 129 

The heart once thus left desolate, must fly at 
last from ease to hate. It almost seems that the 
remedy was worse than the disease. But our 
great-grandfathers, before they had troubles of 
their own, got a great deal of stimulation from 
Byron." 

"But Byron," I said, "did more than that to 
his readers." 

m Yes," said Bagster, "Byron was a real stim- 
ulant." 

" Biblio-therapy is such a new science that it 
is no wonder that there are many erroneous 
opinions as to the actual effect which any par- 
ticular book may have. There is always room 
for the imagination in such matters. There 
has been a great change in the theory of 
stimulants. Here is a little book published in 
Saco, Maine, in 1829. It is 'Stewart's Healing 
Art,' by the Reverend W. Stewart, D.D., of 
Bloomfield, Somerset, Maine. Dr. Stewart, when 
he turned from theology to medicine, lost none 
of his zeal. He was a great believer in very strong 
remedies. In regard to the treatment of night- 
mare, he says, fc It arises from a tarry condition 
of the blood. Half an ounce of my stimulating 



i 3 o A LITERARY CLINIC 

bitters, half an ounce of powders put in a quart 
of good rum will cure the patient/ 

" I fear that among Dr. Stewart's parishioners 
nightmare was a recurrent disease. 

u Physiologists have recently exploded the 
notion that alcohol is a stimulant. They now tell 
us that it is a depressant. The man who has im- 
bibed freely feels brilliant, but he is n't. He is 
more dull than usual, but he does n't know it. 
His critical faculty has been depressed, so that 
he has nothing to measure himself by. He has 
lost control of his mental machinery, and he is 
not strong enough to put on the brake. 

" Here is a stock of literary depressants which 
have been manufactured in large quantities. 
Here is a writer who turns out a thriller every 
six months. Every book has the same plot, the 
same characters, the same conclusion. The char- 
acters appear under different aliases. Their resi- 
dences are different, but one might compile a 
directory of these unnoted names of fiction. 

" Here is a book that conveys the impression 
that it is perfectly shocking. The author speaks 
of his work with bated breath. It is so strong. 
He wonders why it is allowed. And yet it con- 



A LITERARY CLINIC 131 

tains nothing which the adult person did n't 
know before he was born. As for his newly 
discovered substitutes for ethics, they were the 
moral platitudes of the cave-dwellers. The 
habitual reader who imbibes these beverages 
thinks that he is exhilarated. What he needs 
is a true stimulant, something that will stimu- 
late his torpid faculty. 

4 * There are other books which are often con- 
fused with true stimulants but which are really 
quite different both in their composition and 
effects — they are the counter-irritants. 

44 A counter-irritant is a substance employed 
to produce an irritation in one part of the body 
in order to counteract a morbid condition in 
another part. Counter-irritants are superficial 
in their application, but sometimes remarkably 
efficacious. In medical practice, the commonest 
counter-irritants are mustard, croton-oil, turpen- 
tine, and Spanish flies. In recent Biblio-thera- 
peutic practice the commonest counter-irritant 
is Bernard Shaw. There are cases in which 
literature that produces a state of exasperation 
is beneficial. 

" Here is a case in my practice. — A. X. 



i 3 a A LITERARY CLINIC 

Middle-aged. Intelligence middling. Circum- 
stances comfortable. Opinions partially ossified 
but giving him no inconvenience. Early in life 
was in the habit of imbibing new ideas, but 
now finds they don't agree with him, and for 
some years has been a total abstainer. Happily 
married — at least for himself. Is fully appreci- 
ative of his own virtues and has at times a sense 
of moral repletion. Is averse to any attempt at 
social betterment that may interfere with his 
own comfort. 

" He did n't come to me of his own accord 
— he was sent. He assured me that there was 
nothing the matter with him and that he never 
felt better in his life. 

" 4 That is what I understood,' I said. ' It is 
that which alarmed your friends. If you will 
cooperate with us, we will try to make you so 
uncomfortable that in your effort to escape 
from our treatment you may exercise faculties 
that may make you a useful member of society. 

" ■ You must read more novels. Not pleasant 
stories that make you forget yourself. They 
must be searching, drastic, stinging, relentless 
novels, without any alleviation of humor or any 



A LITERARY CLINIC 133 

sympathy with human weakness designed to 
make you miserable. They will show you up. 

" ■ I will give you a list with all the ingredi- 
ents plainly indicated according to the provi- 
sion of the pure food and drug law. Each one 
will make you feel bad in a new spot. When 
you are ashamed of all your sins, I will rub in 
a few caustic comments of Bernard Shaw to 
make you ashamed of all your virtues. By that 
time you will be in such a state of healthy ex- 
asperation as you have not known for years.' * 

" How did it come out ? " I asked. 

44 That time I lost my patient/' said Bagster. 
44 It is curious about irritants, so much depends 
on the person. To some skins glycerine is very 
irritating. And there are some minds that are 
irritated by what is called gentle irony. 

4fc Here is one of the most irritating things 
ever written," he said, picking up Daniel Defoe's 
" Shortest Way with the Dissenters." " To read 
4 Robinson Crusoe ' one would n't suppose that 
its author could drive his contemporaries almost 
frantic. There was nothing sharp about Defoe's 
style. He did not stab his opponents with a 
rapier-like wit. His style was always circum- 



i 3 4 A LITERARY CLINIC 

stantial. His manner was adhesive. Seriously 
and earnestly as one who was working for good, 
he sought out the most sensitive spot and then 
with a few kind words he applied his blistering 
adhesive plaster. No wonder Defoe had to stand 
on a pillory." 

"I suppose," I said, "you would class all 
satires as counter-irritants." 

"No," said Bagster. "Pure satire is not irritat- 
ing. It belongs not to medicine, but to surgery. 
When the operation is done skillfully, there is 
little shock. The patient is often unaware that 
anything has happened, like the saint in the old 
martyrology who, after he had been decapitated, 
walked off absent-mindedly with his head under 
his arm." 

Bagster opened the door of a case labeled 
Antipyretics. It contained what at first seemed 
an incongruous collection of books, among 
which I noticed : " The Meditations of Mar- 
cus Aurelius," Sir Thomas Browne's " Urn-Bu- 
rial," Trollope's novels, the Revised Statutes of 
Illinois, the poems of Ossian, Gray's "Elegy," 
a history of Babylon, "Sir Charles Grandi- 
son," Young's " Night Thoughts," and Thomas 



A LITERARY CLINIC 135 

Benton's "Thirty Years in the United States 
Senate." 

"I don't pretend that this collection has any 
scientific value. My method has been purely 
empirical. There are remedies that I have tried 
on individual patients. An antipyretic is some- 
thing which depresses the temperature; it is use- 
ful in allaying fevers. I should not put these 
books in the same class except for therapeutic 
purposes. They have a tendency to cool us off. 
You know Emerson tells us how, on coming out 
of the heated political meetings, Nature would 
put her hands on his head and say, ■ My little 
man, why so hot?' And there are books that 
do the same for us. 

" It takes a person of a philosophic mind to 
respond to the antipyretic influence of Marcus 
Aurelius. One of my patients confessed that in 
attempting to reach those philosophic heights he 
4 felt considerable het up.' 

u In cases where the conscience has been over- 
stimulated by incessant modern demands, I find 
Trollope a sovereign remedy. After unsuccess- 
ful attempts to live up to my own ideals, as well 
as to those of my neighbors, I drop down into 



136 A LITERARY CLINIC 

the Cathedral Close, Barchester, and renew my 
acquaintance with Bishop Proudie and his ex- 
cellent lady and the Dean and Chapter, includ- 
ing the minor canons. Everything is so morally 
secure. These persons have their ideals, and 
they are so easily lived up to. It is comforting 
now and then to come into a society where 
every one is doing his duty as he sees it, and 
nobody sees any duty which it would be trou- 
blesome for him to do. 

"Here is a somewhat different case. A. J. 
came to me complaining of great depression of 
spirits. On inquiry, I found he was a book- 
reviewer on a daily paper. I suspected that he 
was suffering from an occupational disease. Said 
that nobody loved him, he was a literary hang- 
man, whose duty it was to hang, draw, and quar- 
ter the books that were brought to him for ex- 
ecution. Nobody loves a hangman. Yet he was 
naturally of an affectionate disposition. I found 
that he was a man of fastidious taste, and a split 
infinitive caused him acute pain. Our social 
worker called at the house and found that be- 
sides the agony caused by reading so many poor 
books, he had financial anxiety. The boss had 



A LITERARY CLINIC 137 

said that if he continued to be so savage in his 
criticisms, he would lose his job. He has a wife 
and three children. 

"I talked to him soothingly about the general 
state of literature. It was too much to expect 
that a faultless masterpiece should be produced 
every week. It is hard enough to get people to 
read masterpieces, as it is. If they were produced 
in greater quantities, it might be fatal to the 
reading habit. 

" ■ You set your standard too high at the be- 
ginning. You are like a taxicab driver who sets 
the hands of the dial at the seventy-five cent 
mark before he starts his machine. This dis- 
courages the passenger. If it costs so much to 
stand still, he thinks it would be better to get 
out and walk. Start the day with some book 
that can be easily improved upon.' 

" I gave him a copy of the 4 Congressional 
Record.' ■ Every day before you sit down to 
your pile of new books, read a chapter of this 
voluminous work.' 

" Yesterday he told me he had read a hun- 
dred pages. ' By the way/ he said, * I have 
noticed a marked improvement in our young 



i 3 8 A LITERARY CLINIC 

writers, whose books come to my desk. Their 
style seems so clear and their expressions are 
so concise.' 

" After spending a certain time every day in 
reading the works of our lawmakers he had 
learned many lessons of literary tolerance. He 
used to be annoyed because every one was n't 
as critical as he was. Now he is inclined to treat 
criticism as a special interest. 

" He read with approval a revelation concern- 
ing the Apocrypha given in 1833 to one °f the 
Latter-day Saints. 'Thus said the Lord unto 
you concerning the Apocrypha. There are many 
things contained in it that are true, and there are 
many things contained in it that are not true. 
Whoso readeth it let him understand it. Whoso 
is enlightened shall obtain benefit. Whoso is not 
enlightened cannot be benefited. Therefore it is 
not needful that the Apocrypha should be trans- 
lated.' 

" There is a great deal of sense in that. Those 
who are enlightened enough to read the Apoc- 
rypha will be benefited. Those who cannot be 
benefited will not read it. Perhaps it's just as 
well. 



A LITERARY CLINIC 139 

" I have a patient, an aspiring politician, who 
almost went to pieces through his excessive de- 
votion to his own interests in the last campaign. 
As he had identified his interests with those of 
his country, when he lost the election he felt 
that the country was ruined. He could, he told 
me, have stood his personal disappointment, 
but the sudden collapse of public righteousness 
was too much for him. Marcus Aurelius, Epic- 
tetus and Sir Thomas Browne's 'Urn-Burial' 
had no effect in allaying his feverish symptoms. 
I had him recite Gray's ■ Elegy ' for three suc- 
cessive mornings. But the clinical chart showed 
that his temperature continued above normal. 

"Quite by accident, I recalled the volumes of 
Senator Benton. As a child I had often looked 
at them with awe in my grandfather's library. 
They were my symbol of Eternity. Thirty years 
in the United States Senate seemed such a long 
time. 

" I recommended the volumes to my patient. 
Yesterday he informed me that he felt differ- 
ently about the election. He talked quite ration- 
ally and with a certain detachment that was 
encouraging. He had been thinking, he said, 



i 4 o A LITERARY CLINIC 

that perhaps thirty years after nobody would 
remember who gained this election. A great 
many things, he said, happen in this country 
in the course of thirty years that are not so im- 
portant as they seem at the time. Indeed the 
antipyretic action of Benton's book was so great 
that I feared that he might be cooled down too 
much, so that as a corrective I administered a 
tincture of Roosevelt. 

" I have a patient who had been a stock- 
broker and had retired, hoping to enjoy his 
leisure. But the breaking-up of his accustomed 
habits of thought was a serious matter. His one 
intellectual exercise had been following the 
market, and when there was no market for him 
to follow, he said he was all broken up. 

" He came to me for advice and after detail- 
ing his symptoms asked if I could n't give him 
a bracer ; perhaps I could recommend a rattling 
good detective story. I notice that a large num- 
ber of my patients want to furnish both the 
diagnosis and the treatment, expecting me only 
to furnish a favorable prognosis. I am told by 
medical friends that they have the same expe- 
rience. 



A LITERARY CLINIC 141 

" I sat down with my patient and talked with 
him about occupational diseases. I do not hold 
with some that a steady occupation is a disease. 
It only makes one liable to certain maladies. It 
upsets the original balance of Nature. You know 
Shakespeare says ■ Goodness growing to a pleu- 
risy dies in his own too much/ Too-muchness 
in one direction leads to not-enoughness in 
another. 

4,4 You have had an overdevelopment of 
certain virtues. ■ You must restore the balance. 
For years your mind has been on the jump. It is 
like a kitten that will follow a mouse or a string 
as long as it is moving rapidly. You have been 
obsessed with the idea of price, and when you 
can't learn the price of anything you think that 
it has ceased to exist. It is as if you had spent 
all your life in a one-price clothing store where 
every garment had a tag indicating its exact value 
in dollars and cents. You are suddenly ushered 
into a drawing-room where you see a great 
many coats and trousers moving about without 
any tags. You go away feeling that the cloth- 
ing business has gone to pieces. You need to 
learn that some things exist that are not for sale. 



i 4 a A LITERARY CLINIC 

Now I propose a thorough emotional reeduca- 
tion. Your mind has been interested only in 
rapidly moving objects to which you, at each 
moment, ascribe a specific value. I want to turn 
your mind to the vague, the misty, the impon- 
derable. Each day you are to take exercises in 
nebulosity. You are to float away into a realm 
where being and not being, doing and not doing, 
knowing and not knowing amount to very much 
the same thing. 5 

"My patient rebelled. He said his wife had 
taken him once to a lecture on the Vedanta 
philosophy, and he felt that his constitution 
could n't stand that treatment. 

" 6 I understand,' I said. 'Orientalism does not 
agree with some constitutions. I will try some- 
thing that appeals to ancestral feelings.' 

"I then arranged a set of daily exercises. It 
was based on the principle of a well-known 
teacher of longevity, who advises that we masti- 
cate our food diligently till it disappears through 
involuntary swallowing. I directed the patient 
to fix his mind on the price of his favorite stock, 
at the same time reading aloud a chapter of 
Ossian. He was to keep this up till the thought 



A LITERARY CLINIC 143 

of the stock disappeared through involuntary 
inattention. 

" The cure is slow, but is progressing. I be- 
gan by giving the patient as a thought to hold, 
the price of a hundred shares of New York, 
New Haven and Hartford Railroad. He was to 
hold the thought as he paced his room, inhaling 
deeply and reading, — 

"'A tale of the days of old, the deeds of the 
days of other years. 

"'From the wood-skirted fields of Lego as- 
cend the gray-bosomed mists. Wide over Lora's 
stream is poured the vapor dark and deep. The 
spirit of all the winds strides from blast to blast, 
in the stormy night. A sound comes from the 
desert. It is Conar, King of Innisfail. His ghost 
sat on a gray ridge of smoke/ 

"'That is a queer thing for him to sit on/ 
said my patient. 

"I was greatly encouraged by this remark. 
He had got his mind off the stock. The cure 
was working. 'Keep your eye on the ghost/ I 
said. 'There he is — "with bending eyes and 
dark winding locks of mist." ' 

"After half an hour of rhythmic chanting, I 



144 A LITERARY CLINIC 

found that his anxieties about the stock market 
had evaporated in an Ossianic mist, leaving his 
mind quite cool and composed. Yesterday when 
I made a professional call, I found him reciting 
the praise of Tel. & Tel. 

"'Dreams descended on Larthon, he saw seven 
spirits of his fathers. Son of Alpin strike the 
string. Is there aught of joy in the harp. Pour it 
on the soul of Ossian. Green thorn of the hill 
of ghosts, that shakest thy head to nightly winds! 
Do you touch the shadowy harp robed with 
morning mists, when the rustling sun comes 
forth from his green-headed waves.' 

"He said he didn't have the slightest idea 
what it all meant, but he felt better for reciting 
it. He saw that he had been starved for this sort 
of thing. There was something misty and moist 
about the words. He liked the feel of them. If 
I had n't prescribed Ossian, he might have taken 
to futurism. Shadowy harps, and green-headed 
waves and gray ghosts sitting on a ridge of 
smoke were just the thoughts he needed. They 
made the business world seem so much less 
uncertain. 

"After that, I had a little talk about mental 



A LITERARY CLINIC 145 

hygiene. 'What you said about the moist feel- 
ing of the words is very true. In these days of 
artificial heating and artificial lighting, we keep 
our minds too dry. We ought to have a spiritual 
hygrometer and consult it. While our conscious- 
ness may be all right, our subconsciousness suf- 
fers from the lack of humidity in our mental 
atmosphere. You know that our ancestors were 
people of the mists/ " 

Bagster expounded the theory of literary anti- 
toxins. "Each age has," he said, "its peculiar 
malady. There is one point on which everybody 
is abnormal. There is a general obsession which 
affects all classes. For a time, everybody thinks 
and feels in a certain way — and everybody is 
wrong. The general obsession may be witch- 
craft, or religious persecution, or the eternal 
necessity of war, or the notion that we can get 
something for nothing. Whatever the notion is, 
everybody has it # 

"Ordinary minds succumb to the epidemic. 
Unusually strong minds overcome the toxic ele- 
ments of the time and recover. In their resist- 
ance they produce more antitoxin than they need 



146 A LITERARY CLINIC 

for themselves. This can be used for the benefit 
of others. 

" Thackeray could not have written the ' Book 
of Snobs/ if snobbery had not been a malady 
of his time which it required a special effort on 
his part to overcome. 

''Plutarch's 'Lives' is a powerful antitoxin 
for the evils of imperialism. But Plutarch lived 
when the Roman Empire was at its height. Plu- 
tarch's men were not the men he saw around 
him. They stood for the stern republican virtues 
which were most opposed to the tendencies of 
his age. 

"One great use of the antitoxins is in the 
treatment of various forms of bigotry." Bagster 
showed me a cabinet over which he had in- 
scribed the prayer of Father Taylor, "O Lord 
save us from bigotry and bad rum. Thou know- 
est which is worse." 

He had shelves labeled — Catholic Bigotry, 
Protestant Bigotry, Conservative Bigotry, Pro- 
gressive Bigotry, and the like. "When I first 
began to treat cases of this kind I tried to intro- 
duce the patient to some excellent person of 
the opposing party or sect, thinking thus to 



A LITERARY CLINIC 147 

counteract the unfavorable impression that had 
been formed. But I soon found that this treat- 
ment was based on a mistake and only aggravated 
the symptoms. A bigot is defined as one who is 
illiberally attached to an opinion, system, or 
organization. His trouble is not that he is at- 
tached to an opinion, but only that he is illiber- 
ally attached. My aim, therefore, is to make him 
liberally attached. To that end I try to make 
him acquainted with the actual thoughts of the 
best men of his own party and to show him that 
his inherited opinions are much more reason- 
able than he had supposed. After I have got 
my patient to recognize the best in his own 
party, I then introduce him to the same kind of 
person in another party. At least that is my 
plan." 

"As a matter of fact/' I asked, "do you have 
many patients who come to be cured of their 
intolerance?" 

" No," said Bagster, "people very seldom come 
to a physician unless their disease causes them 
some pain. Now, intolerance causes no pain to 
the intolerant person. It is the other fellow who 
suffers." 



148 A LITERARY CLINIC 

"And I suppose it is the other fellow who 
complains?" 

" Yes, generally/' said Bagster. " The fact is 
that most persons prefer the toxins in their sys- 
tem to the antitoxins. Before you can do much 
for them, you must overcome their prejudices." 

"But in this case the prejudice is the disease." 

"Yes, and the getting them to see it is the 
treatment." 

Just at this moment Bagster was called away 
by a patient who had taken an overdose of w r ar 
literature. I was sorry, because I wished to dis- 
cuss with him books which are at the same time 
stimulants and sedatives. They put new life into 
us and then set the life pulse strong but slow. 

Emerson says, 

That book is good 
Which puts me in a working mood. 
Unless to thought is added will 
Apollo is an imbecile. 

The book which puts us in a working mood 
is one which we are never able to read through. 
We start to read it and it puts us in a mood to 
do something else. We cannot sit poring over 
the printed page when our work seems suddenly 



A LITERARY CLINIC 149 

so interesting and well worth while. So we go 
about our work with a new zest. 

This seems very ungrateful, but when our 
working mood has exhausted itself, we return 
to our energizing volume with that kind of 
gratitude which has been defined as "the lively 
expectation of favors to come." 



THE ALPHABETICAL MIND 



WHEN Gulliver visited Lagado he found 
that the philosophers of that literary 
center had been grappling with the difficulties 
of language. Anticipating the reforms of the 
futurists, they had simplified their speech by 
leaving out all unnecessary words and confining 
themselves to nouns. Then it occurred to some 
of the more advanced thinkers that the noun 
was only the symbol of a thing. Why not con- 
verse by the simple and rational method of 
pointing directly to the thing itself? 

Henceforth the vocabulary of the realistic 
Lagadian was identical with his worldly pos- 
sessions. When .making an afternoon call, he 
would carry with him articles which would serve 
for small talk. Gulliver observed that the more 
highly intellectual citizens found it necessary 
to have servants who carried their conversational 
conveniences in baskets. The ordinary person, 



THE ALPHABETICAL MIND 151 

however, got along very nicely with the subjects 
he could take with him in his pocket. 

When we consider the Lagadian method of 
intellectual intercourse, we are struck by the 
fact of the extreme limitation in the subject- 
matter. But what is lacking in variety is made 
up in clearness. 

Persons of a disputatious turn of mind were 
spared many fallacies. They could not be 
troubled by the ignoratio elenchi, or the undis- 
tributed middle, or the argument in a circle, or 
any of the bugbears of formal logic. When they 
changed the subject, every one knew that it was 
changed. The old subject was wrapped up and 
put back into the basket, and a new subject 
was taken out carefully and dusted and set on 
the table for discussion. In short, in Lagado 
there never was the slightest difficulty in deter- 
mining what you were talking about. There it 
was. You might approve or disapprove, but 
when two persons were in the same room, they 
were seeing the same thing. 

It is just here that our ordinary intellectual 
machinery breaks down. We try to communicate 
by means of words. We express our thoughts in 



1 52 THE ALPHABETICAL MIND 

a way that is perfectly clear to ourselves. We 
pass moral judgments based on conscientious 
reasoning ; but we are never sure that our inter- 
locutor is thinking about the same things. To 
him the words may suggest a quite different set 
of facts. 

It is in vain that we appeal to the dictionary, 
that Hague Tribunal of words. Its solemn ad- 
judications usually evade the point at issue. It 
tells us what a word means, and then proceeds to 
explain that it means something else. It may 
have a dozen significations each supported by 
good authorities. 

You think you know what the word "deacon" 
means, for you know a deacon and esteem him 
highly. You turn to the dictionary and you find 
that in ecclesiastical usage the word " deacon " 
has ten different meanings, according to the 
church you happen to belong to or to the century 
you are interested in. A deacon of the Apostolic 
Church was an officer who took care of the poor. 
A Roman Catholic deacon is quite a different 
person from a Presbyterian deacon. If you are 
curious to know what a Mormon deacon is like 
you are referred to the Mormon Catechism, 



THE ALPHABETICAL MIND 153 

Chapter XVII. But this is merely ecclesiastical 
usage. You are told that in Scotland deacon is 
the title of the president of an incorporated trade 
and chairman of its meetings. But all this does 
not help you to understand the next definition 
— "A green salted hide or skin weighing not 
less than seven pounds." 

In Lagado they would avoid all this ambi- 
guity. The gentleman who was wishing to talk 
about a salted hide weighing not less than seven 
pounds would bring one with him. It would be 
evident that this was a very different subject 
from that presented in the form of an officer of 
the church. But when we use words we cannot 
judge what is meant except by the context 
And the context being formed of other words 
which are also multi-meaningful, it is often a 
case of the blind leading the blind. 

Sometimes the mind falls between two mean- 
ings and suffers a serious shock. Take such a 
word as "law." We talk of natural law, the 
laws of health, the laws of Missouri, international 
law. I have heard an earnest clergyman exhort 
his hearers to obey a law of nature — as if they 
could do otherwise. He had passed from the idea 



154 THE ALPHABETICAL MIND 

of law as a rule of conduct prescribed by author- 
ity, and which we are bound to obey, to law as a 
proposition which expresses the constant or regu- 
lar order of certain phenomena. I can break the 
laws of the commonwealth, and if I am found 
out the penalties provided for such action may 
be visited upon me. But if I willfully jump off 
a cliff I do not break the law of gravitation. I 
only illustrate it. The consequences, however 
painful to me, are not of the nature of legal 
penalty. 

A word will often carry associations from one 
sphere into another. To the ordinary American 
the Monroe Doctrine carries with it a certain 
authority and sanctity. It comes from the word 
"doctrine," which he associates with religion 
rather than with politics. A doctrine is something 
to be believed, and publicly professed. The 
American is a professor of the Monroe Doctrine. 
It is a part of a creed that must be accepted as 
a test of membership. He may not understand it, 
but he should not be skeptical in regard to it. 
Suppose, instead of calling it the "Monroe Doc- 
trine," we should call it the " Monroe Policy." 
Immediately his mental attitude would be altered. 



THE ALPHABETICAL MIND 155 

He passes out of what the theologians call "dog- 
matics " into a region of free thought. A policy 
is something that can be changed to fit the 
times. 

There are purists who have a superstitious 
veneration for the dictionary. To them the lexi- 
cographer is a priest who by the authority vested 
in him joins together the word and its meaning 
in indissoluble wedlock. As a matter of fact, he 
is only a gossip who observes the doings of 
words. His respect for "good usage," which so 
often imposes on us, is based on nothing more 
than " they say." They say that a certain word 
and a certain meaning are "keeping steady com- 
pany." How long it will keep up nobody knows. 

The stories of the flirtation of words collected 
by inquisitive philologists fill huge volumes. A 
literal-minded person is filled with consterna- 
tion over the record of verbal inconstancy. One 
hardly sees how a single word could take up 
with so many meanings. 

It is when we come to moral decision that the 
great difficulty of verbal indefiniteness is most 
keenly felt. We are all the time passing judg- 
ment on matters of conduct. We try to express 



156 THE ALPHABETICAL MIND 

that most fundamental of all judgments — the 
difference between right and wrong. But while 
the moral sense is the most distinctive thing in 
normal human beings, its specific judgments 
are most bewilderingly contradictory. We ap- 
peal to conscience as the arbitrator, and we find 
the dictates of conscience leading to continual 
strife. Using the same moral formula peoples of 
different training and temper come to the most 
opposite conclusions. And the further civiliza- 
tion advances and the more various our experi- 
ence, the more the chances of misunderstanding 
increase. 

When a new thought comes we do not coin 
a new word to express it; we take an old word, 
and give it a new shade of meaning, to the in- 
creasing confusion of the simple-minded. For 
the old meaning is not discarded ; it still survives 
and at any moment may assert itself. 

Now, when thoughts are changing and the 
words remain the same, the break between them 
may have disastrous consequences. Sometimes 
it seems as if the whole fabric of modern civiliza- 
tion were a Babel tower destined to be ruined 
because of the difficulty of making the work- 



THE ALPHABETICAL MIND 157 

men understand one another. The complexity 
and magnitude of the task is not matched by 
flexibility of language. 

What shall we do when we become conscious 
of this confusion of tongues? One way is to 
turn our backs on modern civilization and try 
to return, intellectually and morally, to the sim- 
ple life. In that case we shall try like the La- 
gadians to limit our thoughts to things which we 
are able to grasp. 

In this insistence on simplicity we see a curious 
similarity between idealists like Tolstoy and the 
militarists and commercialists whom- they ab- 
horred. They alike felt the necessity of revers- 
ing the order of evolution. Instead of progress 
from the homogeneous to the heterogeneous, 
they would move from the heterogeneous to 
the homogeneous. Their world should be all 
of a piece. They would eliminate all that in- 
terfered with its self-consistency. 

The militarist would bring his nation to the 
utmost state of preparedness for war. To this end 
he would sacrifice personal liberty, all those moral 
ideas which might interfere with the sole end 
of national organization. The man of business 



158 THE ALPHABETICAL MIND 

would make equal sacrifices for his ideal of ab- 
solute efficiency. The idealist who works for 
peace as often conceives it with equal sim- 
plicity. It is a beautiful state to be attained by 
a return to primitive conditions of life. 

But there is another way of facing the modern 
world. Recognizing the fact that it is becoming 
increasingly complicated, we may accept that 
complexity as involved in the evolutionary 
process. What we need to do is to adjust our- 
selves to the complex realities. Our progress 
must be along the line of further inventions. 
There are difficult tasks which await us; we must 
invent labor-saving machinery that will enable 
us to do quickly and effectively that which must 
be done. 

The sense of bewilderment which charac- 
terizes our time is explained by our lack of 
modern conveniences for thinking. We are 
without sufficient tools for our large and cooper- 
ative work. 

One great invention, which has perhaps done 
more than any other to expedite human com- 
munication, has been only partially followed 
out, — the invention of the alphabet. 



THE ALPHABETICAL MIND 159 

Men were, indeed, able to read long before 
they conceived the idea of an alphabet.* Picture- 
writing must have occurred to a great many 
minds independently. It was not very different 
from the Lagadian method of communication. 
Instead of sending a thing to one at a distance, 
it would be a saving in labor to send a rude 
picture of the object. The further development 
cf the idea was inevitable. The pictures could 
be conventionalized and combined. Not only 
nouns and verbs, but other parts of speech could 
be indicated in pictograms. But though picture- 
writing answered very well for a simple state of 
society where the thoughts to be communicated 
were very few, it became increasingly difficult as 
the number of words to be written increased. 
For each word, or at least syllable, had to have 
a symbol of its own. Reading and writing be- 
came very difficult. There were so many sym- 
bols to learn and remember. 

Then came the epoch-making discovery of 
the alphabet. It represents a triumph of analy- 
sis and synthesis. It was founds that it was not 
necessary to make a picture at all. The sounds 
of the language were distinguished and reduced 



160 THE ALPHABETICAL MIND 

to a very few elements. These phonetic elements 
were indicated by certain letters. Once having 
learned the value of the letters, they could be 
put together in any way that might be desired. 
Even in our imperfect alphabet we can with 
twenty-six letters form all the words that are in 
our language. If we desire to make new words, 
the same letters can be used. There is no con- 
fusion. Even a child can do it. Of course a child 
cannot learn the alphabet as quickly as he can 
learn to read a few simple words without spell- 
ing. If you wish him to recognize the word 
" cat/' it is not necessary that he should pain- 
fully spell our c~a-t. Write the word beside a 
picture of a cat and he sees the point. Likewise 
dog and rat and other animals may he recog- 
nized in this pictorial way without any strain on 
the power of analysis. 

But the difficulty comes when you pass from 
these simplicities to more complex actualities. 
Suppose, instead of "cat" you write it "act." 
There is a family resemblance between the two 
written forms. The child naturally infers that 
"act" is a different kind of a cat. 

Then you must confront him with the highly 



THE ALPHABETICAL MIND 161 

intellectual task of spelling. The child sees each 
letter standing in its integrity. A has a sound 
of its own and so has C and so has T. These 
letters will join in spelling "cat," but they have 
no prejudices in favor of such a combination. 
They will just as readily join with other letters 
to form any other animal. These vowels and 
consonants have no preferences that prevent 
them from making any word that may happen 
to be needed. But whatever company they are 
in, they have a value of their own. 

If we are to emerge from our moral and intel- 
lectual confusion, we must extend further the 
principle of the alphabet. In the decisions of 
the questions that most concern us, we are still 
in the stage of picture-writing. We are, strictly 
speaking, illiterates. We recognize symbols and 
pictures; but we do not know our letters, and we 
cannot put them together. Our moral education 
has not reached the alphabetic style of culture. 

For the child the pictorial method is necessary. 
He is not capable of forming abstract ideas or 
of becoming interested in them. For him seeing 
is the only kind of believing. It is in vain to de- 
fine goodness, but he knows a good man. His 



1 62 THE ALPHABETICAL MIND 

father is a good man, and in a lesser degree his 
uncles and cousins, the degree of goodness vary- 
ing inversely as the distance of the relationship. 
All sorts of admirable qualities may be recog- 
nized in his family and neighborhood. These 
virtuous people form excellent illustrations of 
ethical truths. They serve to show him pictures 
of goodness. 

Now, if he were always to remain with these 
people, there would be no reason why these pic- 
tures should not suffice for his moral expression. 
When the well-meaning person was confined 
to dealing with his own clan, this method did 
suffice. 

But the modern man has been emancipated. 
He is compelled to meet all sorts of people. In 
a democracy he must, in order to deal justly, 
take upon himself responsibilities that once were 
reserved for statesmen. He must get into right 
relations, not with a few neighbors, but with a 
vast variety of persons and situations. 

By those of old time we have been told of 
the duties we owe to our neighbors: but the 
question, Who is my neighbor? comes with the 
startling sense of novelty. We have so many 



THE ALPHABETICAL MIND 163 

new neighbors. We have pictures in our minds 
of admirable characters — the brave, the true, 
the just, the generous. Our soldiers are brave. 
Our hearts thrill as we think of their daring deeds 
of loyalty. But are we able to recognize the 
brave man who does not wear our uniform? Can 
we recognize a brave enemy? A martyr is a 
man who dies for what he conceives to be the 
truth. We have visions of the noble army of 
martyrs. But these faithful witnesses all seem to 
agree with us. They are the people who died for 
the things we believe in. But what of those 
whose opinions did not coincide with ours? 
They died for ideas which do not commend 
themselves to us. Do they belong to the noble 
army? The fact is we are able to recognize a 
few combinations that have been made familiar 
to us. But we are not able to read at sight the 
characters that pass before us with such bewil- 
dering rapidity. To know a good man when we 
see him is not easy, if he happens to come from 
a different neighborhood, and have strange man- 
ners, or wear outlandish clothes. 

The old-fashioned spelling-match used to 
begin tamely with words of one or two syllables 



1 64 THE ALPHABETICAL MIND 

which the least unskilled could master; then it 
rapidly mounted to words never used in common 
speech but which were the alpine summits of 
orthography. Those who had fallen by the way 
looked up admiringly at the mountaineers scal- 
ing polysyllabic pinnacles. How surprising were 
the adventures and misadventures. One might 
mount to the summit of Sesquipedality and yet 
on his return to the lower level fall into a cre- 
vasse that yawned between e and i. 

In a moral spelling-match it would not be 
necessary to give out any but the most familiar 
words, for we are all beginners and are easily 
confused. Spell " Christian virtue." How many 
eager hands are upraised — theological profes- 
sors, preachers orthodox and liberal, devout 
church members, philosophers, historians ! 

How many ways they spell it! There seems 
to be no agreement as to the elements of which 
it is composed. Wherein does Christian virtue 
differ from any other kind of virtue ? 

Several years ago I happened to be on a com- 
mittee to arrange the programme of a conven- 
tion interested in practical religion. We had a 
morning devoted to Christian ideals in business. 



THE ALPHABETICAL MIND 165 

We wished to have speak to us a number of 
business men who had been successful in doing 
business in accordance with the Golden Rule. 
They would tell us their experience. A number 
of names were suggested by different members 
of the committee. When the names were all in, 
the chairman remarked, " Gentlemen, has it oc- 
curred to you that all these Christians are 
Jews?" 

It reminded me of the embarrassment which 
must^ have come to J those who asked, Who 
is our neighbor ? and were told the story of the 
man who had fallen among thieves. It was a 
beautiful story and illustrated precisely what 
they had been taught to recognize as that which 
was most characteristic in Hebrew virtue. How 
irritating, when their moral sentiments were 
flowing in the traditional channel, to have a 
complexity added — he was a Samaritan. They 
could recognize a good Jew. It formed a fa- 
miliar picture. But a good Samaritan — that 
was no picture at all. And they did not know 
how to spell. 

For the good Jew to recognize the existence 
of the good Samaritan involved a moral reedu- 



1 66 THE ALPHABETICAL MIND 

cation. He must set free the idea of goodness 
from the idea of nationality with which it had 
been invariably connected. He must do what 
the printer does when he distributes the type. 
They have printed to-day's news. To-morrow 
the same letters in different combinations must 
print quite different words. Many persons have 
no facilities for distributing moral type. Early 
in life their minds are made up. Henceforth all 
their impressions are made from stereotyped 
plates. 

Not being able to express these- new choices 
in the stereotyped form, they cease to think of 
them as having any moral significance. The 
man was an idealist in his youth. Now he is com- 
pelled to conform to what he considers an un- 
moral world. Conscious of the increasing dis- 
crepancy between his practice and his principles, 
he becomes either a cynic or a sentimentalist. 
His conscience only makes him querulous. In 
his judgment of other people he is bitter. He 
has a definite picture of what they ought to be. 
Their lack of correspondence to that mental 
picture is an evidence of their hypocrisy. 

The man with the alphabetical mind is able 



THE ALPHABETICAL MIND 167 

to deal with the actual world much more steadily 
and effectively. His moral ideals are nor in a 
glutinous mass, adhering to some concrete form. 
They are easily detachable. He recognizes a few 
elements which always retain the same values, 
but which may unite to form all sorts of com- 
pounds. 

When he admires sincerity, he has recognized 
a distinct moral value. He speaks of a sincere 
friend, but in precisely the same way he ac- 
knowledges the sincerity of his enemy. The 
man is mistaken, but he is sincerely mistaken. 
There is a sincere believer and an equally sin- 
cere skeptic. The two have much more in 
common than they realize. The quality of sin- 
cerity manifests itself differently in a man of 
science and in an artist, but it is essentially the 
same virtue. Now, sincerity is always admirable 
in itself, but it is only a single letter in the moral 
alphabet, and it may be used in spelling many 
unpleasant words. 

A bigot is often sincere and so is a prig. 
One may heartily acknowledge their good quali- 
ties and yet be sincerely desirous of avoiding 
their company. 



1 68 THE ALPHABETICAL MIND 

Moralists have a way of treating certain vir- 
tues or vices as if they were inseparable. They 
tell us, for example, that a bully is always a 
coward while the brave are the gentle. Such 
combinations form pictures that are easily rec- 
ognizable. But, unfortunately, it is not safe to 
judge human nature in this pictorial fashion. 
The next bully we meet may not be so easily 
scared as we should desire. He may be of the 
courageous variety. 

A man may be learned and yet lacking in 
common sense. He may be selfish, efficient, 
narrow-minded, enthusiastic, devout, good-na- 
tured, healthy, and affectionate. And he may 
exhibit these traits singly or in any conceiv- 
able combination. He may be a genuine phil- 
anthropist addicted to sharp dealing. He may 
be a mystic, hard and cruel. He may be a 
saint with a rich vein of humor. In short, you 
can never tell what he is till you know him 
intimately. 

In passing sweeping judgments we may see 
one characteristic and then around it we build 
a character to match. We have an elaborate 
set of inferences which are usually wrong in 



THE ALPHABETICAL MIND 169 

proportion as they are logical. It is so much 
easier to condemn than to understand. The 
conscience staggers along under a load of in- 
discriminating judgments. It is the lazy man's 
burden. 

To come down from the judgment seat and 
take our place in the spelling-class is a sore 
trial to our pride. We have no longer a chance 
for that splendid, confident dogmatism which 
is so becoming to us. Our pictures of faultless 
heroes and utterly wicked foes lose their sym- 
metry. We are not so sure of ourselves as we 
should like to be, and we come upon many 
facts that pain us. If we had our own way, we 
should not acknowledge their existence; but 
we are not allowed to have our own way. We 
must spell the hard words that are given out, or 
else go to the foot of the class. 

Spelling is a difficult business and familiar 
words have a strange look when we analyze 
them. Sometimes when we take a word apart 
it seems impossible to get it together again. 
We have to use our minds. It 's not nearly so 
nice as the old way of looking at pictures and 
being told what they mean. But the teacher 



i TO THE ALPHABETICAL MIND 

says that if we keep at it and really learn to 
spell, then we can take up the big book for our- 
selves and tell what it means. Before we are 
able to read freely we must learn our letters. 



THE GREGARIOUSNESS OF MINOR 
POETS 



BY natural disposition and by habit of life 
a poet is the least gregarious of human 
creatures. He flourishes in what Milton de- 
scribes as "a pleasing solitariness." Novelists 
and historians must be, in some sort, men of the 
world. They must frequent courts and draw- 
ing-rooms and all sorts of public gatherings in 
order to collect material for their work. They 
are traffickers in other men's ideas, and they 
must be good mixers. 

But when the poet is "hidden in the light 
of thought," it is his own thought. If it is dif- 
ferent from other men's thought, all the better. 
It adds to the fascinating mystery of his per- 
sonality. The highest praise we can give him is 
the acknowledgment that he has had some gift 
that was all his own. " His soul was like a star 
and dwelt apart." It is possible for him to do 



1 7 2 THE GREGARIOUSNESS OF 

i 

his best work while dwelling apart, for his busi- 
ness is not to interpret other men's moods, but 
his own. 

Clergymen are inclined, when they have 
opportunity, to flock together in presbyteries 
and conferences, associations and convocations. 
After preaching to their congregations on Sun- 
day they frequent ministers' meetings on Mon- 
day, where they address one another. Theodore 
Parker used to lament this habit, to which he 
ascribed some of the faults of his brethren. 
Ministers, he declared, are like cabbages; they 
do not head well when they are planted too 
close together. But though clerical gregarious- 
ness may be carried to an excess,- a certain 
amount of it is necessary to the successful car- 
rying on of the profession. Among the higher 
clergy the solitary habit would be obviously 
impracticable. When Lord Westbury was asked 
what were the duties of an archdeacon he an- 
swered: "The duties of an archdeacon consist 
in the performance of arch-diaconal functions." 
Now it is evident that these arch-diaconal func- 
tions cannot be performed except in connection 
with an ecclesiastical body. No one, however 



MINOR POETS 173 

gifted, could be an archdeacon on his own 
hook. 

So a lawyer must be a member of the bar in 
order to practice his profession. The physician 
must be in good standing in the Medical So- 
ciety. A plumber cannot act as a mere indi- 
vidual. He does not appear like the solitary 
horseman in the romances. He is a recognized 
duality. When we send for a plumber we ex- 
pect to see two. A pleasing solitariness is not 
allowed in his working hours. 

But a poet does not need other poets to bear 
him company or to complete his work. He does 
not need a congregation to inspire him. He 
comes alone to his chosen reader. It is a case 
where two is company and three is a crowd. 

The transitory nature of his inspiration adds 
to this tendency to solitariness on the part of the 
poet. It is not easy for him to keep business 
hours, or make contracts for work to be finished 
at a given time. His productive energy is 
inconstant. The product of industry can be 
counted upon and can be delivered when prom- 
ised. But the poetry which is the product of in- 
dustry is worthless. All the value is that which 



i 7 4 THE GREGARIOUSNESS OF 

comes from some unpredictable felicity of mooa 
Now and then a poetical thought comes, and 
under the impulse of the moment he puts it 
into words that are really much better than he 
could have contrived if he had labored for them. 
There is a sudden snatch of real song, a phrase 
or two that are unforgettable. No one seems 
able to do these things every day. It is a great 
good fortune to be able to do them sometimes. 
A person who is subject to such accidents we 
call a poet. 

Sometimes the poet attempts to meet the man 
of affairs on his own ground, and do business 
according to the accepted rules. He is usually 
mortified by his inability to " deliver the goods." 
In the Book of Numbers there is an illuminat- 
ing story of such an attempt to control poetic 
inspiration. The poet Balaam had gained a con- 
siderable reputation among the Moabitish tribes 
for his fine flow of maledictory verse. When 
Balak had become alarmed over the progress 
of the invading Israelites, he bethought him 
of Balaam and his gifts. "And Balak offered 
sheep and oxen and sent them to Balaam." 

But when Balak waited for the outburst of 



MINOR POETS 175 

rhythmical invective which he had paid for he 
was disappointed. Instead of curses Balaam's 
words turned out to be blessings of no value 
whatever to his employer. Instead of living up 
to his contract Balaam " went not as at the other 
times to meet with enchantments, but he set his 
face toward the wi ldemess." It was the wild nature 
of the poet asserting itself. 

Balaam sang his song in his own way without 
regard to his contract, and no wonder that Balak 
was indignant. "Balak's anger was kindled 
against Balaam and he smote his hands together 
and Balak said unto Balaam : I called thee to 
curse mine* enemies ' and behold thou hast 
blessed them altogether these three times. There- 
fore now flee thou to thy place. I thought to 
promote thee unto great honor, but lo, the Lord 
hath kept thee back from honor." 

The story of the parting of the man of affairs 
and the poet is one that has been repeated many 
times. "And Balaam rose up and went and re- 
turned to his own place ; and Balak also went 
his way." 

In his natural state the poet accepts the situa- 
tion cheerfully. He sets his face toward the wil- 



176 THE GREGARIOUSNESS OF 

derness which he loves, and is content with the 
inspiration which may come. But now and then 
among the minor poets there comes a change of 
temper that is most remarkable. The minor poet 
forgets his individuality and becomes gregarious. 
He is no longer content with casual inspiration 
and intermittent illuminations. He must be up 
and doing. He must cooperate. He must find 
those whose spiritual impulses synchronize with 
his own. He must choose a name which shall 
designate those who belong to his school. Above 
all, he must educate the general public to ap- 
preciate the product of cooperative genius. 

In indicating that this sudden gregarious ten- 
dency is most observable among minor poets 
no disparagement is intended. The term "minor 
poet/' like that of minor prophet, refers to the 
quantity rather than the quality of the work 
done. Amos was not less a prophet than Ezekiel. 
His book is not so large, that is all. This in a 
literary man may sometimes be an added claim 
to our regard. Gold is gold, whether found in 
the mother lode or in a slender vein. Some of 
the best poetry is the work of minor poets who 
left no complete poetical works. They have not 



MINOR POETS 177 

created much, but they have given some words 
which are priceless. Who does not know the slen- 
der little volume that comes unheralded? Is so 
modest that it makes little demand upon time 
or shelf room? And yet many a bulky volume 
has less worth. It is the individual offering of 
the minor poet in his unsophisticated days. 
Later on a bit of his work might slip into a 
place in the anthologies. That is a post-mortem 
honor. 

But when the minor poet becomes class-con- 
scious, he is ambitious to make his first appear- 
ance in an anthology. He will not go alone up 
a footpath to Parnassus, if he can climb into an 
omnibus with his mates. The more the merrier. 
When the gregarious instinct is in control we 
no longer are conscious of the appeal of a single 
person. A company of new poets appears in a 
body and insists on the right of collective bar- 
gaining for our admiration. We must accept the 
New Poetry that bears the Union label, or face, 
the consequences. 

Now in joining the union, and merging him- 
self with a group, however excellent, the new 
poet is, I think, ill-advised. There are some 



178 THE GREGARIOUSNESS OF 

things which cannot be done cooperatively, and 
poetry is one of them. It cannot be standardized 
or promoted. In fact there is very little that can 
be done about it except enjoy it when it comes. 

There is nothing more delightful than the dis- 
covery of a new poet, unless it is the recovery 
of an old one. We are eager to hear a fresh, 
unspoiled voice and to be cheered by a varia- 
tion on familiar themes. That in which he dis- 
tinctly differs from those who preceded him is 
his peculiar merit. He comes with the dew of 
the morning upon him. 

If it should happen that at about the same 
time another new poet should turn up that would 
be a happy coincidence. There is always room 
in the upper story for such rare visitants. Half 
a dozen new poets appearing simultaneously 
would awaken surprise. Still it would not be 
miraculous. Such things have happened. But the 
point is that each newcomer must stand on his 
own feet and do his work in his own way. His 
welcome must be all his own. The fact that he 
appears at the same time with others is only an 
accident. 

The new poet is at his best before he has been 



MINOR POETS 179 

sophisticated by too much intercourse with men 
of his own craft. We love to watch him going 
his care-free way, unmindful of the Duties of 
the Hour or the Idols of the Tribe. He is like 
the shepherd in Lycidas who, when he had sung 
his song, 

twitched his mantle blue 
To-morrow for fresh woods and pastures new. 

It was the quick gesture of one conscious of the 
need neither of audience nor collaborators. 

It is a sad day for the new poet when he hears 
the call of his kind and becomes conscious that 
he has a duty to perform for his fellow poets in 
explaining and defending their innovations. In 
dedicating his talents to the service of the group 
he is guilty of futile self-sacrifice. He loses his 
first sense of irresponsible freedom, and after a 
few years he becomes a conscientious copyist of 
his own early manner, and an apologist for the 
manner of his coevals. The murderer who re- 
visits the scene of his crime has at least the salu- 
tary experience of remorse. But the poet who 
continually revisits the scene of his early suc- 
cess has no spiritual gain; and he is kept away 
from fresh woods. 



180 THE GREGARIOUSNESS OF 

The gang spirit has its uses, but there are 
spheres in which it does not make for the 
highest excellency. A single saint is admir- 
able, but who would not flee from a gang of 
saints, eager to impose their peculiar type of 
piety upon the community? I read of a 
medieval saint who, when he was invited to a 
rich man's table, united courtesy and asceticism 
by partaking of the food set before him, but at 
the same time unostentatiously sprinkling the 
rich viands with ashes. This was admirable. But 
if I were a rich man I should not like to enter- 
tain a dozen saints who would bring their ash- 
shakers to my table. I should find their man- 
nerism offensive. 

The Hebrew prophets whose words have 
come down to us were thorough individualists. 
They were solitary in their habit and spoke 
their words whether men heard or whether they 
forbore. But there were bands who were called 
" the sons of the prophets." These men made a 
profession of prophetism and wandered about 
prophesying collectively. We do not, however, 
hear of any great utterance coming from these 
organizations. It is the same with the sons of 



MINOR POETS 181 

the poets who form schools and coteries, and 
who are dependent on mutual support. The co- 
operative effort seems to do little for the pro- 
duction of the kind of poetry which the world 
does " not willingly let die." It, however, pro- 
duces a vast amount of the other kind. 

Some individual breaks away from the con- 
ventions. Immediately he has a score of follow- 
ers, who, by using his formula, produce what 
appears to be the same results. The fashion 
grows by a process of accretion till it becomes 
an old fashion and is suddenly dropped. There 
was a period when poetry was conceived of as 
the " Paradise of Dainty Devices." Poets vied 
with each other in the invention of conceits. 
Words never ventured into print in their obvi- 
ous meanings. They appeared in elaborate mas- 
querade. Even religion hid behind a masque 
and claimed attention by pretending to be some- 
thing else. This make-believe was considered 
the very essence of poetry. It was the criterion 
by which it could be distinguished from prose. 

But these "Dainty Devices " would not have 
pleased the poet who a century ago from the 
American backwoods voiced his aspirations. 



1 8a THE GREGARIOUSNESS OF 

O for a thousand mouths, a thousand tongues, 
A throat of brass and adamantine lungs ! 

To the members of the school of the brazen- 
throated and adamantine-lunged all refinements 
were contemptible. They were all for strength. 

Sometimes the bond of union between minor 
poets is educational. They feel that it is their 
duty to improve the mind, and they proceed to 
do it. I take up a volume entitled " Fugitive 
Poems connected with Natural History and the 
Physical Sciences." It is not necessary that this 
anthology should be dated. It obviously be- 
longs to the middle of the nineteenth century. 
How pathetically these poetical fugitives flock 
together, seeking safety in numbers! Driven 
out of their habitations by the advancing hordes 
of Science, they attempt to obtain mercy by 
chanting the praise of their conquerors. We are 
reminded of the exiles by the rivers of Baby- 
lon from whom those who carried them away 
captive required a song. The poetic captives of 
science did their best to satisfy the demand, but 
soon gave up the effort and hung their harps 
on the willows. 

"It is another world which we enter wheti we 



MINOR POETS 183 

take up "The Nightingale or Polite Amatory 
Songster — A Selection of Delicate, Pathetic and 
Elegant Songs designed chiefly for Ladies." It 
was published in Boston in 1808. The prin- 
ciple of selection was stated : " This volume is 
presented to the public with no exclusive claims 
of patronage except those arising from the solici- 
tude of the compiler to avoid every expression 
that might offend the delicacy of female mod- 
esty." 

The " Amatory Songster " was but one of a 
vast number of volumes which belonged to 
what we may call the " Literature of Moral Solici- 
tude." It seems to have occurred simultaneously 
to a multitude of prose writers and poets, that, 
in taking their pen in hand, they should avoid 
every expression that might give offense. That 
any other virtue or grace beside that of avoid- 
ance was necessary did not occur to them. Even 
writers who were capable of more positive and 
varied contributions to literature sought to an- 
swer the demand. 

Oliver Goldsmith, in his collection of " Poems 
for Young Ladies," went even beyond the 
"Amatory Songster" in his solicitude. He says: 



1 84 THE GREGARiOUSNESS OF 

" Dr. Fordyce's excellent sermons for Young 
Women in some measure gave rise to the fol- 
lowing compilation. Care has been taken to 
select not only such poems as innocence may 
read aloud without a blush, but such as will 
strengthen that innocence." 

Goldsmith was evidently ambitious. His col- 
lection should not merely represent the current 
ideal of innocence. It should be the latest word 
in Super-Innocence. He remarks : " Poetry is 
an art no young lady can or ought to be wholly 
ignorant of. The pleasure which it gives, and 
indeed the necessity of knowing enough to mix 
in modern conversation will evince the useful* 
ness of my design." 

Now the cat is out of the bag. Poetry as a 
pleasure was one thing. But the more important 
thing was the assumed " necessity of knowing 
enough to mix in modern conversation." Here 
the gregarious motive comes in. Poetry for its 
own sake might be produced and enjoyed in 
blameless solitude. But the connection between 
poetry and conversation renders it necessary to 
put the emphasis upon timeliness. Poetry must 
approximate to journalism. It must have a dis- 



MINOR POETS 185 

tinct news value, and be kept up to date. No- 
body wants to talk about last year's fashions. 

It is obvious that as the fashions in modern 
conversation change there will be a demand for 
a corresponding change in the poetry that is to 
be talked about. Innocence having been talked 
out, conversation turns to a solemn knowing- 
ne^:. We see in our own time among those who 
would be in the swim an insistence that poets 
should choose themes that satisfy the serious- 
minded inquirer. The more unpleasant the sub- 
ject is, the more meritorious. Indeed in some 
circles it is assumed that the poet who would ad- 
vance the cause of modernity must begin his 
campaign with a policy of deliberate frightful- 
ness. Having shown his ability to hack his way 
through the sensibilities of his readers he may 
afterwards yield to his native geniality. 

All this is a matter of fashion. If fashion re- 
quired that a sound moral be tacked on to every 
bit of poetry, the demand would be met by 
those who were in close touch with the market 
To do otherwise would be to invite disaster. 

An eighteenth-century critic complains that 
the " Scribleriad " by the much-admired poet 



1 86 THE GREGARIOUSNESS OF 

Richard Owen Cambridge was not as popular 
as its merits would indicate. "The composition 
of the 'Scribleriad' is regular, spirited and poetic. 
There are few descriptions so happily imagined 
as the approach of an army of rebuses and acros- 
tics." Rebuses and acrostics were in fashion; 
why, then, was the public so cold in its attitude 
towards the " Scribleriad"? The critic explains: 
" It is to be regretted that the author determined 
to avoid moral reflections, which he could easily 
have furnished." 

Mr. Cambridge was not really up to date. If, 
instead of merely describing his army of rebuses 
and acrostics, he had explained that they sym- 
bolized the eternal warfare of virtue and vice, 
all would have been well, and he would have 
had an honorable place among the new poets. 

But Mr. Cambridge may have been infected 
by another fashion that was just passing that 
was not moral at all. Another critic of about the 
same period alludes to "the usual anacreontics 
the spirit of composing which was raging a few 
years since among all the sweet singers of Great 
Britain." 

I like that phrase, " the spirit of composing 



MINOR POETS 187 

which/' It can be applied to so many cases in 
literary history. The spirit of composing anacre- 
ontics was not the only one which raged in those 
days among the more gregarious poets. There 
was the great Thomas Warton who had a school 
of fashionable poetry, which he defended against 
all comers, for Warton was not only a poet, but 
a most redoubtable critic. "As a contributor to 
the literature of his country few men stood higher 
than Warton." He could write pieces like the 
"Triumph of Isis" and "The Pleasures of Mel- 
ancholy"; but above all he believed in writing 
odes. He composed odes on all subjects from the 
"Ode to Spring" to an "Ode to a Grizzle Wig," 
His brother Joseph was also a most highly ap- 
proved clergyman, critic, and poet. This gave 
an opportunity for team play. 

But after a while the demand for Wartonian 
poetry fell off. The biographer sadly remarks, 
"The school of Warton, as it is called, has not 
of late been mentioned with the respect it de- 
serves." It is the fate of schools. 

I came across an old volume of "The Senti- 
mental Magazine " for 1 773-74. The prospectus 
was most appealing. The editor opened his heart 



1 88 THE GREGARIOUSNESS OF 

to his subscribers. Sentimentalism he said was 
in the air. The new writers were full of it. But 
it had not been organized. People were senti- 
mental in spots and because they were surprised 
by emotion. But now the time had come for 
sentiment to have an organ of its own. The maga- 
zine would express the aspirations and achieve- 
ments of the Sentimental School. Here, free 
from the annoyances of alien habits of thought, 
they could indulge to their hearts' content in 
pure feeling. The editor promised that "every 
number of this magazine will force the tears of 
sensibility from the eyes of the reader." 

What became of this literary force-pump I do 
not know, I fancy, however, that after a time 
it ceased to work. We are all ready to yield to 
emotion when it is spontaneous, but we harden 
our hearts when we suspect that certain persons 
have entered into a conspiracy to exploit our 
tender feelings. 

I once had a lesson which I took to heart. I 
had two friends, both of whom happened to be 
blind. It unluckily occurred to me that it would 
be a pleasure to them to be made acquainted. 



MINOR POETS 189 

But when I suggested this to one of them he 
drew himself up with dignity and said: "I de- 
cline to make acquaintances on the basis of my 
infirmity/' 

I think of this when I see the attempts to bring 
together poets on the ground of what seem to 
the prosaic mind common interests and con- 
ditions. It is assumed that those who belong to 
the same party or live in the same place enjoy 
being put in the same category. Here is a vol- 
ume entitled "The Poets of Maine; a collec- 
tion of specimen poems of a hundred verse- 
makers of the Pine Tree State." The Poets of 
Iowa are as numerous, and the Poets of Michi- 
gan are as the leaves of the forest. Why is it 
that local loyalty and state pride seem to fail to 
furnish any real bond of union to these verse- 
makers ? I do not think of Longfellow as a Poet 
of Maine. He has other claims upon my regard. 

A topographical term, like the "Lake Poets," 
may be useful for conversation or lecturing, but 
it serves no other end. Because a certain num- 
ber of gifted persons frequented the same lovely 
region, it does not follow that they had a great 
deal in common. The absurdity of classifications 



i 9 o THE GREGARIOUSNESS OF 

according to residence is seen when we remem- 
ber that Keats was characterized by spiteful con- 
temporaries as belonging to the Cockney School. 
Any one less of a cockney it would be hard to 
find. Keats walked the London streets, but his 
true citizenship was in the islands 

Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold. 

There have been times not far remote when 
it was thought a laudable undertaking to bring 
together collections of verse under the title "Fe- 
male Poetry." Why should the female poets 
be segregated? A careful scrutiny of their works 
reveals nothing which they might not have ex- 
pressed with the utmost propriety in the pres- 
ence of their gentleman friends. When I think 
of Sappho I think of her simply as a poet. That 
is the way I suppose that Sappho would like to 
be thought of. 

Nor is the technique of their art a bond of 

union between true poets. Such a poet may 

find his most natural means of expression in the 

familiar forms of prosody. Or he may say with 

Chaucer's pilgrim — 

I can nat geste — rum, ram, ruf — by lettre, 
Ne, God wot, rym hold I but litel bettre. 



MINOR POETS 191 

He may be the freest of free versifiers, but if he 
has the poet's gift he may take what liberties he 
will. It is a case when the end justifies the means. 
But, let him not think to make us receive all 
who abjure rhyme and familiar metres as belong- 
ing to his class. Because we admit the actuality 
of a horseless carriage, it does not follow that 
any carriage can be made to go by the simple 
device of shooting the horse. Nor should the 
new poets pride themselves on their newness in 
point of time. It will soon wear off. The bond 
that unites a poet to his contemporaries is very 
slight compared to that which unites him to 
kindred spirits in many generations. Poetry is 
the timeless art. 

The greater poets have always proudly de- 
clared their independence of the passing hour. 
The mere chronological sequences have to them 
little significance. Shakespeare utters his de- 
fiance. 

No, Time, thou shalt not say that I do change. 
Thy pyramids built up with newer might 
To me are nothing novel, nothing strange, 
They are but dressings of a former sight. 

Thy registers and thee I both defy 

Not wondering at the present nor the past. 



1 92 MINOR POETS 

Nor is this impression of timelessness charac- 
teristic only of the supreme poets. The minor 
poets when they are at their best have the same 
gift. They snatch from our working day some 
blessed moments of real insight. We see some- 
thing that does not belong to the passing hour. 
It was true a thousand years ago and it is true 
still. These Robin Hoods rob time for the bene- 
fit of eternity. We cannot discipline them or 
organize them. But we are glad that there are 
these merry men. 



THE TAMING OF LEVIATHAN 

THE frontispiece of Hobbes's " Leviathan " 
contains a symbolic picture that becomes 
terrifying only when we ponder its meaning. 
There is a huge figure of a man holding in his 
hands the scepter and crozier, symbols of politi- 
cal and ecclesiastical power. The figure repre- 
sents one born to rule. 

Or was he born ? Closer inspection reveals 
the fact, boldly proclaimed in the text, that this 
ruler was not born but made. He is declared to 
be the "artificial man." He is made out of a vast 
number of little men, put together after the fash- 
ion of a picture puzzle. 

But why call this artificial man, not by a hu- 
man name, but after a mysterious monster of the 
deep ? Quotations from the Book of Job make 
clear the reason. Leviathan represents sheer 
force, without pity and without respect for the 
individual conscience. Leviathan is less than 



i 9 4 THE TAMING OF LEVIATHAN 

man in that he does not love ; but he is stronger 
than any man. He is at once subhuman and 
superhuman. He represents a kind of strength 
which terrifies because it cannot be moved by 
the spectacle of our helplessness. It listens to 
no appeal. 

Canst thou draw out Leviathan with a fish hook ? 

Or press down his tongue with a cord ? 

Canst thou put a rope into his nose ? 

Or pierce his jaw through with a hook ? 

Will he make many supplications unto thee ? 

Or will he speak soft words unto thee? 

Will he make a covenant with thee, 

That thou shouldest take him for a servant forever ? 

Leviathan knows nothing of rights or du- 
ties: — 

In his neck abideth strength, 

And terror danceth before him. 

The flakes of his flesh are joined together: 

They are firm upon him; they cannot be moved. 

His heart is as firm as a stone; 

Yea, firm as the nether millstone. 

When he raiseth himself up, the mighty are afraid. 

So the Hebrew poet told of the pitiless 
strength of Leviathan, against whom it was use- 
less to contend. All this, said Thomas Hobbes, 
is true of that " artificial man " whom we have 
made, and who, when once made, is our mas- 



THE TAMING OF LEVIATHAN 195 

ter. He is the work of our hands, but we must 
worship him because, if we do not, he has power 
to kill us, and he will kill us because he has no 
pity. He is made by us, not because we will to 
create him, but because we must. He like our- 
selves is a creature of necessity. 

This artificial man is the Commonwealth or 
the Nation. In one sense Leviathan is an ag- 
gregation of human beings, but once formed 
he has interests apart from them. They must 
sacrifice themselves to him, and must yield im- 
plicitly to his will. 

Is that will a righteous will ? In one sense, 
yes. The artificial man can do no wrong, for he 
himself determines the morality of those who 
must obey his will. He makes the law ; he en- 
forces it. That is right which makes him strong 
and increases the bounds of his dominion. The 
individual conscience must keep silent in the 
presence of its master. Private scruples must 
give way to public expediency, which is the 
essence of public right. But what if the indi- 
vidual still protests? Leviathan will strike him 
dead. Surely, " upon earth there is not his like." 

But if we made Leviathan, why can we not 



196 THE TAMING OF LEVIATHAN 

unmake him ? Living as he did amid the un- 
certainties of a troubled time Hobbes could not 
deny the fact of revolution. And when revolu- 
tion became a fact, he was consistent with his 
theory in accepting it. Yes, you can unmake 
Leviathan, but only as you make another Levi- 
athan, who is stronger than he. You stand in 
the same relation to this new Leviathan that 
you stood to the old. You have made some- 
thing that is mightier than yourself. Struggle 
as you will, you do not escape the rule of brute 
force. But why does not our discontent take a 
more radical form ? Why do we not at last in 
desperation refuse to create the artificial man 
who tyrannizes over us? Is there not such a 
thing as liberty ? Why not let the institutions, 
political and ecclesiastical, decay, while each 
man lives his own life and obeys his own con- 
science? Let kings and priests perish, while 
the individual man obeys the inner light. 

Because, says Hobbes, we are all afraid. 
More than anything else we fear one another. 
In the state of nature every man's hand is against 
his neighbor. A man left to himself is helpless. 
He must find protection somewhere. Only 



THE TAMING OF LEVIATHAN 197 

through organization can he find security for 
life and property. But where the organization 
gets strong enough to protect him, it becomes 
too strong to be directed by him. It matters 
not what form the organization takes, whether 
we call it a " kingdom " or " commonwealth," 
whether at the head is King Charles or Oliver, 
the Protector, the only thing that is left for 
us is obedience. Our protector must determine 
what for us is duty. 

Hobbes presented the question of might and 
right as it appeared to the mind of the seven- 
teenth century. His contemporaries were still 
discussing the question of the divine right of 
kings to rule, as it presented itself to the ecclesi- 
astical conscience. Hobbes was sternly secular. 
Royalty was not to him a divine institution. 
His argument would work equally well with a 
republic. He was dealing with human necessity 
and natural law. The power that we must obey 
is of our own invention. But it has got away 
from us, and turns upon us, and exercises com- 
pulsion over us. We are destined to make in- 
stitutions which it is impossible for us to con- 
trol. There is nothing left for us but blind 



198 THE TAMING OF LEVIATHAN 

obedience to a force which we are powerless to 
resist. 

Had Hobbes lived in the twentieth century his 
Leviathan would have been a much more for- 
midable monster. For the natural man has not 
greatly increased in moral or intellectual stature, 
but the artificial man has grown prodigiously. 
Human ingenuity has increased the power of 
political organization without having contrived 
means by which it may be spiritualized. Mech- 
anism has been perfected, while the power to 
direct it to useful ends has not increased. 

We have awakened to a great fear. We 
had rejoiced because human intelligence had 
gained such wonderful control over the blind 
forces of nature. But what if it should turn out 
that human intelligence is itself a blind force, 
incapable of real self-direction ? What if it is 
destined to create institutions which destroy its 
own happiness ? It organizes forces which are in 
the end destructive. It creates an artificial man 
and then sacrifices to it all that makes the indi- 
vidual life tolerable Hobbes called his artificial 
man " a mortal god." What if the mortal god 
is satisfied with nothing but human sacrifice? 



THE TAMING OF LEVIATHAN 199 

It is just at this point that we must make our 
stand. Leviathan is strong; that we must ac- 
knowledge, and he is likely to become stronger. 
We should not refuse to use his strength. 
But we do refuse to bow down and worship him 
as a god. 

The fact is that civilized man has not de- 
veloped so far as to be free from the animistic 
superstitions of his remote ancestors, who wor- 
shiped the work of their own hands. The age- 
long battle against idolatry must still be waged. 
Back of some of the most dangerous doctrines 
of our modern ; times there are ideas that are 
survivals of the thinking of the most primitive 
worshipers. 

Listen to the ancient iconoclast as he taunted 
the idolaters : " The smith maketh an axe, and 
worketh in the coals, and fashioneth it with 
hammers, and worketh it with his strong arm ; 
yea, he is hungry, and his strength faileth; 
he drinketh no water, and is faint. The car- 
penter stretcheth out a line ; he marketh it 
out with a pencil; he shapeth it with planes, 
and he marketh it out with the compasses, 
and he shapeth it after the figure of a man. . . . 



200 THE TAMING OF LEVIATHAN 

He falleth down unto it and worshipped, 
and prayeth unto it, and saith, Deliver me; for 
thou art my God." 

Then the prophet goes on with bitter sincer- 
ity: "None calleth to mind, neither is there 
knowledge nor understanding to say, I have 
burned part of it in the fire ; yea, also I have 
baked bread upon the coals thereof; I have 
roasted flesh and eaten it: and shall I make the 
residue thereof an abomination? shall I fall 
down to the stock of a tree ? " 

One would have supposed that the carpenter, 
who with his axe and pencil and compasses had 
wit enough to make a wooden image that looked 
like a man, would also have wit enough to know 
that this image was not a god. He had no illu- 
sions with regard to the rest of the tree. Wood 
was wood when he needed fuel to bake his 
bread. But this piece of wood which he had 
hewn into human shape was to him divinity. 

But suppose, instead of a superstitious car- 
penter, that we are addressing a company of citi- 
zens, who have fallen into an idolatrous attitude 
to the State. Might they not properly be ad- 
dressed in much the same fashion. 



THE TAMING OF LEVIATHAN 201 

You have fashioned for yourselves a god. 
You have made it, not out of stone or wood, but 
out of your own thoughts, habits, necessities. 
Each' one of you has a measure of strength. 
Part of it you use for the preservation of your 
own lives and for the welfare of your own fam- 
ilies. The residue goes to the building up of 
those common interests which belong to the 
State. And this is well. The Nation has no 
power except that which you the citizens sup- 
ply. You make it what it is. It has no life apart 
from you. It is a great and powerful instrument 
which you have created and which you are 
to use for ends which you approve. To say 
that a nation is prosperous, when prosperity is not 
diffused among its people, is to indulge in super- 
stition. National honor is a vain thing unless it 
corresponds to the ethical standard of the people 
who are asked to give their lives in its defense. 
It is really their honor that is involved. 

Over against the animistic idea of the Com- 
monwealth as an artificial man who has been en- 
dowed with superhuman and supermoral powers, 
there is slowly growing up an idea that is severely 
realistic. The political institution has nothing 



202 THE TAMING OF LEVIATHAN 

miraculous about it. It is a tool of our own 
making. We invented it; we use it for our own 
purpose. We use it, and when it ceases to serve 
our highest purposes, it is time to invent some- 
thing better. The Nation is a huge aggregate 
of the interests, customs, laws, traditions, and 
ideals which we have in common. The loyalty 
of the individual citizen ceases to be a blind in- 
stinct. It^is based on substantial agreement in 
fundamental ideas. To those who hold this con- 
ception of the State, political morality differs 
from personal morality only in the fact that it is 
more difficult, and that its operations are on a 
larger scale. 

We are watching, in Europe, not merely a 
'conflict between nations, but a conflict between 
two conceptions of the meaning of nationality. 
No form of fanaticism has been preached more 
zealously nor been carried out more ruthlessly 
than the worship of the State as a mortal god. 
The hour of disillusion is coming. This is the 
meaning of the growing movement for demo- 
cratic control. 

Here in America the Leviathan of Hobbes, 



THE TAMING OF LEVIATHAN 203 

bearing the scepter and crozier, has been par- 
tially tamed. We no longer worship the sym- 
bols of political or ecclesiastical power. Our 
attitude toward the dignitaries of Church and 
State lacks servility, and often, we must confess, 
is lacking even in the respect that is seemly. 

/-Nevertheless, we are not free from the wor- 
ship of Leviathan as a mortal god. His power 
is not so much political or ecclesiastical as eco- 
nomic and industrial and professional. We have 
been organizing forces that overawe us. 

The corporation is an invention, by which the 
individual may join his fortune with others in 
accomplishing work which is far beyond his 
own means. He finds protection here and cooper- 
ation. But as the institution grows, it makes an 
appeal to the imagination on its own behalf, and 
altogether apart from the objects for w r hich it 
was originally intended. 

A railroad performs the function of a com- 
mon carrier. Now, when a common carrier had 
only a horse and cart, it was very easy to de- 
termine his relation to the public. His work was 
useful, but strictly limited. He was to carry 
goods and passengers as economically as pos- 



ao4 THE TAMING OF LEVIATHAN 

sible along the public highway between two 
towns. It was well understood that it was not 
his business to determine where the highway 
should run, nor to interfere with the govern- 
ment of the towns. 

But when competing railroads become a " sys- 
tem," and there is a huge army of employees, and 
great offices become like a capital city, and terri- 
tory is annexed, and there are highly trained 
officials, the railroad becomes personified. It is 
an object of a devotion that easily becomes 
superstition. 

We have seen railroad presidents and direc- 
tors whose actions can be explained only as a 
kind of idolatry. They were bowing down and 
sacrificing to the work of their own hands. 
Ordinary business motives would not account 
for the fact that they would pay more than it 
was worth for property whose only use was to 
glorify the system. After one of these unremu- 
nerative additions to the mileage of the railroad, 
one hears the same kind of shout that went up 
from the ancient worshipers, when for the space 
of two hours they cried, " Great is Diana of the 
Ephesians." 



THE TAMING OF LEVIATHAN 205 

In the mean time the stockholders whose 
money was invested, and the public whose goods 
are to be carried, are little considered. They 
must be prepared to sacrifice to the great Levia- 
than. 

The thoughtful working man finds himself in 
a similar plight. He is confronted by a power 
which he himself has created, and which protects 
him from his enemies, but at the same time 
coerces him. Only through organization can he 
hold his own against those who would reduce 
his wages and lower his standard of living. But 
the organization becoming his master is pitiless 
when he tries to live his own life in freedom. 
When he worships it as a mortal god, it crushes 
him. 

Nor does any one of us altogether escape the 
dilemma. Whoever discovers that in union 
there is strength is confronted by the question 
whether that strength is to be used or to be 
worshiped. He must become either an artist or 
an idolater. 

The artist uses whatever material and what- 
ever forces he finds at hand, but he does not al- 
low himself to be mastered by them. And when 



ao6 THE TAMING OF LEVIATHAN 

he has finished his work, he does not fall down 
before it. He looks at it critically, he sees its 
limitations, and he plans a new work which he 
hopes may surpass it. 

He does not worship the work of his own 
hands because he worships an ideal that is al- 
ways beyond him. The cure for idolatry is 
idealism. 



THE STRATEGY OF PEACE 



SEVERAL years ago in the "Atlantic 
Monthly" I drew attention to an experi- 
ment which was being tried in a Theological 
Seminary in which I was interested. Money had 
been left by an eccentric individual to found a 
chair of Military Science in the Seminary. The 
trustees had no precedent to warrant them in 
rejecting any considerable gift, and therefore 
sought to adapt the professorship as far as possi- 
ble to the peaceful ends for which the institu- 
tion was founded. They were fortunate in find- 
ing a retired army officer who entered heartily 
into the work to which he was called. The 
Colonel believed that the peace-maker could 
never succeed until he put as much courage and 
skill into his work as was necessary to the suc- 
cessful conduct of war % 

Not long ago I revisited the Seminary and 
spent an hour in the Colonel's classroom. I found 



208 THE STRATEGY OF PEACE 

that the events of the last two years had left their 
impress on him and he was less inclined to dwell 
on the technicalities of his art, but his interest in 
the subject had not abated. The subject of his 
lecture was — "Some Lessons of the Present 
War bearing on the Strategy of Peace." 

He said in the popular mind there is a con- 
fusion between strategy and stratagems. A strata- 
gem is an artifice for deceiving and surprising 
the enemy. In former wars there was much room 
for such carefully planned surprises. It was pos- 
sible for a general with an inferior force, by rapid 
concentration at an unexpected point, to gain a 
decisive victory. Even so late as our Civil War, 
Stonewall Jackson with a mobile force was able 
to paralyze the operations of a much larger army. 
In the Shenandoah Valley, screened by moun- 
tain ramparts, he could keep the Union generals 
guessing. 

But in the present war there have been few 
surprises. There have been battles which in the 
number of troops engaged and in casualties have 
outranked the famous battles of history, but they 
have decided nothing. Even the non-military 
public did not follow them with breathless in- 



THE STRATEGY OF PEACE 209 

terest, because there was the perception of the 
fact that this war is not to be decided by any 
single battle. 

The only possibility of a decisive surprise 
was at the beginning. When it became evident 
that the German armies could not reach Paris 
by a sudden rush, the war settled down to a 
grim trial of absolute strength. There was no 
room for stratagems in which the weaker party 
might win by a clever trick. 

The use of the aeroplane made surprise move- 
ments difficult, but the main consideration was 
the magnitude of the operations and the vast 
number of reserves. What does it matter if on 
a battle front of hundreds of miles an army is 
confronted suddenly by a superior force at a 
particular point ? Men and guns can be hurried 
in unlimited quantities to the threatened point 
and the balance of force redressed. Until the 
reserves are actually exhausted, the fight will 
go on. 

Strategy in the sense of stratagems has had 
an insignificant place in this war, but strategy 
in its true sense, as the art of conducting com- 
plicated military movements, has never been 



aio THE STRATEGY OF PEACE 

more wonderfully displayed. In former wars 
mobilization has been incomplete. Only part of 
the power of the nation has been brought into 
action. In this desperate conflict it was early 
seen that every bit of strength was needed. The 
war was a war of attrition. The aim was to col- 
lect the largest reserves possible of men and 
munitions and money. All possible powers 
must be coordinated; the plans must be made 
upon long lines. Only when the work of prep- 
aration had been completed could there be a 
decision. It is a grim, terrible business, but once 
begun it must go on till one party is utterly 
exhausted. 

It is this character of the war, its stern sim- 
plicity of outline, and its tremendous scope, 
which distinguishes it from all former conflicts. 
The general fitted for the task needs not quick- 
ness or cleverness, but a broad, massive under- 
standing, an indomitable will, and a godlike 
patience. He must expect no spectacular vic- 
tories. The force he wields moves like a glacier 
and not like an avalanche. 

Those who have been appalled by the dreadful 
character of this contest like to speak of a war 



THE STRATEGY OF PEACE 211 

against war. But I fear that they are not fully con- 
scious of the lesson that is being taught us. They 
often fail to recognize the magnitude of the opera- 
tions in which they are engaged. Many are still 
inclined to put their trust in pious stratagems 
by which the hosts of darkness may be out- 
witted. They are not fully aware of the need of 
thorough preparation and of world-wide coop- 
eration. They imagine that the war against war 
may be won by a trick or by a sudden frontal 
attack. 

My colleague in the chair of Homiletics tells 
me that there is no military maneuver which is 
more used by the sermonizers of the Seminary 
than that of Gideon. Gideon, with a force of 
twenty-two thousand troops, had encamped by 
the well of Harod. He detached all but a picked 
body of three hundred veterans. With these he 
faced the allied army of Midianites and Amale- 
kites who occupied the north end of the valley. 
Their force must have been considerable, for it 
is said they "lay along in the valley like locusts 
for multitude; and their camels were without 
number, as the sand which is upon the seashore 
for multitude." 



ai2 THE STRATEGY OF PEACE 

Gideon made a night attack, his three hun- 
dred men being armed only with torches, trum- 
pets, and empty pitchers. In the panic that 
ensued the allied army was routed. My col- 
league tells me that after reading the discourses 
handed in for criticism, he is led to believe that 
the students in the Seminary put too much reli- 
ance upon the efficacy of empty pitchers. 

The stratagem of Gideon was admirable for 
its day, but it cannot be safely repeated under 
modern conditions. A general will hardly be 
justified in sending away the majority of his 
troops and trusting to a small body of choice 
spirits. The risk is too great. 

In looking over the ante-bellum peace liter- 
ature I have been struck by the curious lack of 
imagination. There seemed to be no power of 
visualizing the field and estimating the resources 
of the enemy. In this the peace-makers com- 
pare unfavorably with the war-makers. You have 
learned from your textbook that a prudent king 
before he makes war sits down and " takes coun- 
sel whether he is able with ten thousand to meet 
him that cometh against him with twenty thou- 
sand." Such a preliminary calculation seems to 



THE STRATEGY OF PEACE 2 13 

have been omitted in many of the plans in the 
war against war. In almost every case decisive 
operations were proposed, while an altogether 
inadequate force was provided. Reliance was 
put upon a general panic upon the part of the 
enemy as the result of a sudden attack. 

You remember how confident many people 
were, only three or four years ago, that the 
bankers, if they were so disposed, could stop 
any war that threatened seriously to interfere 
with business. We might safely dismiss all other 
agencies for keeping the peace and put our trust 
in this Gideon band. All they had to do would 
be to break their financial pitchers. Panic would 
do the rest. It would not take three hundred 
to do the trick. If a dozen of the invisible rulers 
of Europe would say the word they could in- 
sure peace. To stop credit would be to stop war. 

There were other strategists who were equally 
certain that Organized Labor was strong enough 
to stop war between nations. Had it not already 
been organized into a formidable international 
army for this very end? Were not all workers 
comrades? Did they not say so? Could any 
war be carried on against their will? All that 



214 THE STRATEGY OF PEACE 

was needed was the threat of a general 'strike 
Instantly the war-makers would see the impos- 
sibility of continuing their operations. 

I went into a church and heard a most sin- 
cere minister discourse on the one way to 
secure a lasting peace. He dismissed all the 
auxiliaries of the secular world-economics — 
diplomacy and all appeal to physical force. 
There should be no entangling alliances. The 
war against war must be waged only with spir- 
itual weapons, and by those who were willing 
to trust to no arm of flesh. 

The Church could stop war if it would. All 
that is needed is to induce people to be good. 
A good man will not fight. That is the long 
and short of it. He enlarged on this aspect of 
his subject through the most of his discourse so 
that he left little time for the consideration of 
the question which most interested me, What 
would the bad men do under those circum- 
stances ? He dismissed the question, however, 
with the dogmatic assertion that the bad men 
would n't be so bad as to keep on fighting if 
the good men would n't irritate them by forci- 
ble resistance. 



THE STRATEGY OF PEACE 215 

But the minister's point of view seemed states- 
manlike compared with' the simple-mindedness 
of the militarist. He was quite sure that there 
was only one way to keep the peace and that 
was for every one feverishly to prepare for 
war. No nation need arm except for defense. 
But to be adequately defended, a nation must 
have the biggest army and the biggest navy in 
the world. Obviously only one nation can be in 
that position at any one time. But when all 
nations are striving for that ideal of perfection, 
it will create a dangerous situation; in fact, it 
will be so terribly dangerous that everybody 
will be afraid of everybody. There will be such 
an accumulation of explosives that nobody will 
dare light a match. In that universal fear it was 
supposed that there would be the power to keep 
the peace. 

Then the great explosion came, and what men 
feared, happened. We were all stunned and we 
arose, chastened, to begin to clear away the ruins 
and to build anew. It is useless to twit one an- 
other about the failure of self-confident prophe- 
cies. We are all in the same boat — pacifists, mili- 
tarists, socialists, business men, diplomatists. Our 



2i 6 THE STRATEGY OF PEACE 

plans on which we prided ourselves have failed. 
Not one of us has been able to avert the catas- 
trophe. 

But this does not mean that we are to give up 
in despair. It only means that we are engaged 
in an undertaking so vast that we cannot expect 
to win by any isolated action. There must be 
coordination of all the forces which make for 
peace. We cannot afford to say to any one of 
them, "I have no need of thee." 

Let me emphasize the word "forces." The 
founder of this professorship had in mind ques- 
tions of dynamics. He believed in force and he 
thought that you should be trained into its effec- 
tive application. The forces which he had espe- 
cially in mind were moral and spiritual, but he 
took for granted that the intellectual problems 
were similar to those that arise whenever we use 
any form of energy. 

In using force a fundamental consideration is 
that we should have enough of it. An inade- 
quate force accomplishes nothing. It must al- 
ways be measured by the resistance. Only when 
this resistance is actually overcome by an excess 
of energy is there victory. This is a point which 



THE STRATEGY OF PEACE 217 

many pacifists overlook. They praise moral 
force and declare that it should be sufficient in 
all emergencies. But the amount they produce 
is only sufficient for a parlor exhibition. It is 
enough to satisfy a company of well-disposed 
ladies and gentlemen who have no particular 
grievances. But there is not a large enough quan- 
tity to quell a hungry mob, still less to coerce 
a military nation intent on conquest. 

It is as if one were to describe the tremendous 
effects of an explosion of nitro-glycerine, and 
then exhibit a small bottle of pure glycerine. 
The rocks would not be rent by this emollient. 
Only in the proper combination with more pow- 
erful elements, and in sufficient quantities, could 
one expect any notable results. 

After hostilities on a large scale have once 
begun, to cry, " Stop the War," is like the cry 
of frightened passengers in a collision, "Stop the 
train." Everybody would like to stop the train, 
but nobody can do it. The trains have a hor- 
rible way of stopping themselves. 

The present war will go on till its momentum 
is exhausted, and it will give way to that equi- 
librium which we, for want of a better term, 



2i 8 THE STRATEGY OF PEACE 

call peace. But that peace which statesmen will 
patch up when soldiers are exhausted is not the 
peace for which you young gentlemen are striv- 
ing. It is the peace which is made by the tempo- 
rary damming of the stream, it is not the " peace 
that floweth as a river." It is not the peace of 
action, but the peace of exhaustion. 

History is full of high-sounding names like 
the Peace of Utrecht, the Peace of Paris, the 
Peace of Tilsit, and the rest. They only indi- 
cate a temporary preponderance of force. They 
register the results of war. How little they 
amount to is evident to any one who will spend 
an hour reading a Chronology. 

I open, for example, at the year 1716. "Al- 
liance between Great Britain and the Emperor 
May 25." That is a good beginning. "Turks 
defeated by Eugene at Peterwarden Aug. 5." 
The Turks were always disturbers of the peace 
and must be put down before anything perma- 
nent can be established. "The Perpetual Peace 
proclaimed at Warsaw Nov. 3." There you have 
it, the deed is done! In the same month Eng- 
land establishes a Sinking Fund for the extinc- 
tion of the National Debt. The economic 



THE STRATEGY OF PEACE a 19 

argument against war is beginning to have its 
effect. 

But what happens in the next ten years after 
Perpetual Peace was formally proclaimed at 
Warsaw ? The chronologist goes on his monoto- 
nous way as if he were announcing the departure 
of trains from the Union Station. Battle of Bel- 
grade; Sardinia invaded by the Spaniards; Siege 
of Fredrikhall by Charles of Sweden; France de- 
clares war against Spain; Jacobite plots in Eng- 
land; Buda burnt; War between Turkey and 
Persia." After which the powers come together 
to consider the preliminaries for a general peace. 
By that time Czar Peter had died and people 
had forgotten that perpetual peace had already 
been established at Warsaw. 

It will be observed that it is taken for granted 
that war settles things. Peace is the interval be- 
tween these outbursts of activity. 

What we dream of is a state in which this 
will be reversed, when great and necessary 
changes and adjustments can be brought about 
peacefully. Isaiah stated the ideal: "I will make 
thy officers peace, and thine exactors righteous- 
ness." It is this exacting nature of a righteous 



220 THE STRATEGY OF PEACE 

peace that presents the real difficulty, and it is 
this difficulty you must face. 

Wars arise out of a conflict of wills.. One 
group of men earnestly desire a certain good. 
Their wills are thwarted by another group who 
stand in direct opposition. How shall they get 
what they desire? The quietist has an answer 
that is exceedingly simple. The good man can 
always have peace by refusing to resist. Let him 
cultivate meekness of spirit. By ceasing to in- 
sist on his own will he avoids conflict. 

If all men cultivated this spirit it would be 
effective in keeping the peace, though it is doubt- 
ful if it would insure progress. The little com- 
munities founded on the abnegation of personal 
ambition have found it hard to hold on to their 
more energetic young people. 

Unfortunately, the appeal of the quietist is 
more effective with the naturally virtuous than 
with the strong, self-confident sinner. So the 
way of the transgressor is often made easier than 
it should be. 

It is a strategical mistake for the champion of 
peace to spend much time upon the naturally 
yielding or timid, or even upon those with whom 



THE STRATEGY OF PEACE 221 

prudential considerations prevail. These do not 
make wars nor are they able to prevent them. 

The effort must be made to convince the 
strong-willed and ambitious. Whether the strong 
man be a hero or a ruffian, whether his purpose 
be righteous or unrighteous, he must be made 
to see one thing, and that is that there is a power 
that is stronger than he is. If his ends be just 
and righteous, he must be assured that there is 
a power strong enough to do for him more than 
he can do for himself. He must appeal to that 
power and trust it. If he be impelled only 
by selfish and brutal instincts, he must be made 
to see that this power will inevitably stand in 
his way and overwhelm him. It says to him, 
"Thus far shalt thou go, no farther." 

War is a trial of 'strength. It is a glorious 
hazard. Peace comes when one confronts a 
power so assured that a trial is not needed. The 
result of conflict is certain. 

Let us consider first the case of the hero, 
the strong man who, in defense of what he 
believes to be essential justice, takes up arms. 
You see the man coming out of Edom, " trav- 
eling in the greatness of his strength." Why 



222 THE STRATEGY OF PEACE 

are his garments red? He answers, "I have 
trodden the winepress alone, and of the peo- 
ple there was none with me. I trod them in 
mine anger and I trampled them in my fury 
and their life-blood was upon their garments." 

These are terrible words, but before you con- 
demn him for a bloodthirsty savage, you must 
remember that you have been taught to "judge 
not after appearance, but to judge righteous 
judgment." You must not judge him by his 
words nor by his blood-stained garments. 

He comes out of Edom,and you should try to 
find out what has been going on in Edom which 
has roused him to this fury. He has been the spec- 
tator there of deeds of unspeakable cruelty. He 
has seen the weak tortured by triumphant and 
pitiless foes. He has been himself the victim of 
arbitrary power. " I looked and there was none 
to help and I wondered that there was none to 
uphold. Therefore mine arm brought salvation 
and my fury it upheld me." 

The " therefore " represents the logic of the 
strong man in the presence of a great wrong. 
It is not cool logic, but logic that is aflame with 
passion. The premise of the argument is, "there 



THE STRATEGY OF PEACE 223 

was none to help." If that be true the conclu- 
sion is irresistible, the strong man must himself 
take the responsibility of righting the wrong, 
and he must do it with such means as he has 
at hand. The justification of his fury is that it 
upholds him in the work which he is compelled 
to do. 

In such an emergency the real peace-maker 
puts his main effort, not on the effect, but on the 
cause. He seeks to remove the cause. "Look 
again," he says, "and you will see that it 
is not true that there are none to help. I am 
here to help, and behind me are mighty powers, 
able to do quietly and effectively what you are 
seeking to do violently. These powers have been 
organized for this very purpose, and their work- 
ing is sure." 

If the hero can be convinced that there is an 
adequate power to do justice by orderly proc- 
esses he lays down his arms. But before he 
disarms he makes sure that there is something 
more than a verbal promise. The helper must 
have sufficient force. 

On the other hand, turn to the eighteenth 
chapter of the Book of Judges and you will find 



22 4 THE STRATEGY OF PEACE 

another type of war-maker with whom you must 
deal. The children of Dan have started out on 
a free booting expedition. Their reasoning is 
simple. " In those days there was no king in 
Israel, and in those days the tribe of the Dan- 
ites sought them an inheritance to dwell in." 
So they sent out spies who "came to Laish 
and saw the people that were therein, how they 
dwelt in security after the manner of the Zidon- 
ians, quiet and secure ; . . . and they were far 
from the Zidonians." 

What happened? The Children of Dan 
"came unto Laish, unto a people quiet and 
secure, and smote them with the edge of the 
sword; and they burned the city with fire. And 
there was no deliverer, because it was far from 
Zidon." 

One would like to say that that is only an- 
cient history, and that such things do not hap- 
pen now to any small nation that lies quiet and 
secure. Unhappily the facts do not bear out this 
pious wish. 

The Children of Dan have their logic too. 
They reason, "Laish is weak, we are strong; 
therefore we will take it for ourselves. We need 



THE STRATEGY OF PEACE 225 

territory for expansion. We can get it by the 
strength of our own arms." 

If such wars of aggression are to cease, the 
Danites must be confronted with a power which 
they have learned to respect. When they say 
arrogantly, " We will," the quick answer comes, 
" You cannot." Moreover, this restraining power 
must be wise enough to consider and redress the 
real grievances of the Danites. If they cannot 
take the means of livelihood by force, there 
must be some just means provided for them. 

The question of keeping the peace resolves 
itself into a question of power. We must find 
a power that can satisfy the legitimate desires 
of men, and repress their illegitimate and abnor- 
mal desires. This is the purpose of social organ- 
ization. It is based on the principle that all men 
are stronger than some men. If we could find 
what is good for all men, and then get all men 
to see these things which belong to the common 
good, we should have the power to enforce 
peace. 

Such agreement as to what constitutes the 
common good is still far off, but mankind has 
been moving toward it. Wherever two or three 



226 THE STRATEGY OF PEACE 

are met together for a common purpose there 
is movement away from anarchy. People have 
learned to say, " We." 

Two notable triumphs of peace principles 
have taken place — the family and the nation. 

The family is a most interesting institution to 
study because in any community we may see it 
in all stages of development, from the pure 
despotism, in which the physically strongest 
rules, to the ideal cooperative commonwealth. 
But after ages of experiment it has been found 
that the highest forms have proved the stronger. 

The same thing has proved true in regard to 
the national groups. The free republic has 
proved to be one of the strongest of political 
organizations. It is the triumph of reason over 
brutal passions. It involves the principle of 
arbitration as opposed to the trial by battle. 
Men of different creeds, callings, and education 
are enabled to live together in a certain territory 
without resort to violence. The weaker party is 
not crushed, but is safeguarded in its funda- 
mental rights. Moreover, ways have been in- 
vented for radical changes in policy. Every 
four years the people of the United States may 



THE STRATEGY OF PEACE 227 

have a political revolution of the first magnitude 
— the party in power is driven out in a single 
day and the insurgents are installed without the 
firing of a shot. 

Human nature is not transformed, but reason 
determines the way in which social forces may 
work. The marvelous thing is that these ar- 
rangements are not upheld merely by the ideal- 
ists who devised them. The free institutions are 
supported by the irresistible might of all citi- 
zens. The hard-headed and narrow-minded par- 
tisans who ordinarily oppose each other bitterly 
will on the instant unite in defense of the Con- 
stitution. Anarchy has only to be recognized 
to be crushed. 

It is from this vantage-ground won by past 
effort that we can best use our power for the 
suppression of international warfare as it now 
exists. The peace-lover makes a strategical mis- 
take when he appeals merely to the individual 
conscience and treats war as personal prefer- 
ence. Very few individuals prefer going to war 
to other forms of human activity. It is as mem- 
bers of a nation and in obedience to the social 
conscience that they sacrifice their lives. 



22 8 THE STRATEGY OF PEACE 

It is to the social conscience and the patriotic 
impulse that we must appeal if international war 
shall give way to something better. 

The time has come when people of all nations 
are asking how that which is most precious in 
their nationality can be preserved. They have 
tried to preserve these things by each nation 
arming in its own defense. At last the weight 
of necessary armament becomes intolerable. 
And when the long-prepared-for conflict comes, 
the victor and the vanquished fall in common 
ruin. 

Certainly it is not beyond the wit of man to 
devise a way by which the power of all nations 
could be put behind a few simple laws which 
all recognize as just and for the common good. 
Our notions of national sovereignty must be 
revised, so that we shall recognize some limits. 
So we have had to define the liberty of the 
individual before we could have a nation strong 
enough to safeguard that liberty. 

It has taken time and ceaseless effort to build 
up a government of the people. It will take 
more time and greater effort to bring order out 
of the present international anarchy. But the 



THE STRATEGY OF PEACE 229 

same forces which have worked hitherto must 
be used in the task that awaits us. We are still 
in a world where "ignorant armies clash by 
night." It is our task to dispel that ignorance. 
One thing we know and that is that when men 
are able to see their real interests they will see 
that they cannot be secured except by world- 
wide cooperation. 



THE END 



CAMBRIDGE . MASSACHUSETTS 
U . S . A 





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